Dosage Miscalculation

Last wednesday night I had my first mushroom trip (5 grams of P. Cub.). It was intended to be a recreational trip. Why so much for a recreational trip? Well, mainly becasue I didn't do my homework on the subject. First off, I was not really aware of the qualitative difference between shrooms and acid in terms of the types of trips they tend to induce. Secondly, I had the approximate dosage comparisons (to whatever degree they can be compared). That is, I thought that the ration was approximately 1.5 grams of shroom per hit of acid. I found out later that I had it backwards -- oops :) To put this in perspective, the most of anything I've ever done is 4 hits of pretty strong LSD - -this came closer to 7.5 hits worth, based roughly on the above comparison. You see the problem now :)

So, it was 11:23 pm wed. (23:23 -- you'd think I woulda taken the hint :) - -- I had a 10:30 am flight the next morning to Dallas to see the 'rents for the holiday, which meant I had to pack at 6 am and leave at 7 am. This didn't seem like a big deal -- I've traveled before on the down swing of acid trips (I even tripped while flying once -- man was that cool) with no problem and I knew I'd get plenty of sleep in Dallas. So, I munched down the shroomage and played on IRC. About 20 minutes later I felt it start to kick in. I climbed up into my bed (I have a loft bed -- my desk is under it), bringing along my discman and a blindfold. In the discman was Landings, by Stephen Kent -- an excellent cd of didgeridoo music which I *highly* recommend for setting a mood for shamanic journeys of this sort (albeit better-planned than this one). As I lay in bed, I felt a tightness sweep through my body. I began to wonder if mayhaps I had gotten the Wrong kind of shrooms and was going to die now? After about 10 minutes of that the tension passed and that fear went with it.

I put on my headphones and the blindfold, turned out the light, lay down and started the music. The low warbling thrumming of the didge seemed to pierce my soul. A tunnel of shifting geometric lines opened before me and I felt myself being pulled down it. As I passed through it, doors opened along its length. From them stepped large Things, vaguely reminiscent of the creatures from Where the Wild Things Are. Each one of them seemed to represent an issue that I needed to deal with. It should be kept in mind that I was a bit nervous about my immanent trip to Dallas, as I was pretty sure that before the weekend was up I'd be having a couple really nasty fights with my dad. I felt as these things approached me that since I had to be functional at 7 am, I wasn't in a position to deal with these issues because I wouldn't have proper recovery time. As background, it should be kept in mind that the worst day of my life, to date, was coming down from an acid trip that I had needed to resolve some heavy issues, but having not fully resolved them and needing 3-4 more hours to myself, but not having them cause I had to go to bostoin to see family I didn't really like much -- there were almost casualties that day, literally, so the idea of traveling with unresolved issues kicking around in my head did Not appeal to me. So, as each of these Issues stepped out of it's doorwway, I found myself putting a mental hand in it's face, pushing it back the way it came and telling it I'd be back another time and we'd talk then.

Three tracks into the CD I had to turn it off. It was just too intense - -- the music cut right thrugh my soul to the core of my consiousness. I started to realize that I'd taken Too Much. "Well, here we go," I thought, "guess it's my turn for a Bad Trip now that I've talked so arrogantly and unkowingly about the topic (see my VPL posts in the Avoiding Bad Trips thread). Bugger -- guess I'll just haveta bludgeon my way through it till it wears off. Damn." I got out my Freaky Chakra CD to try and brighten my mood. It's my favorite acid tripping cd -- always makes me very happy and bouncy. But not this time. Again, the intensity level was just too high. I took off the blidfold, sat up, and turned on the light. I decided that I need to slow down in general -- I have, of late, been playing too fast and loose with my gray matter. The Grof workshop (the one Andrei posted about -- I was also at it) had been that weekend and my first 4 hit acid trip had been the previous weekend and in general I'd been tripping more often than was really wise. I started getting worried as the intensity continued to rise. I felt I should have someone there but didn't know who I could call. I felt I should really try and cut the Trip short. I'd heard of B-complex vitamins possibly beinging down acid trips, but had forgotten which B-Complex and couldn't find my heavy-dose B-complex vitamins anyway (which I had bought mainly for lucid dreaming experiments). Instead I took a general high-dose multivitamin -- figured it couldn't hurt :)

I sat down in front of the computer, on which I had IRC running. I felt the shrooms taking me deeper and deeper, opening up my mind, all the filters dissolving. It was soooo smooth -- there was none of the metalic-electric edge to it that I feel with acid -- that always reminds me of its presence. The screen got progressively harder and harder to read. The names next to the lines of text changed randomly when I looked at them. Luckily I was using a color Mac IRC client (Homer) so the stuff was color-coded, seperating what everyone else said from what I said from/mesgs I sent from /msgs I received. I couldn;t understand what people were saying (I could barely read it at all), but seeing that I was reveiving /msgs of concern was comforting. I managed to type enough to say I was ok but that it was just WAY too intense for me. I periodically got up and walked around. I found that my mind kept going off on tangents -- going along different lines of thought, playing out scenes and scenarios. I wouldn't even realize my mind was doing it till it enbded and I found myself back where I started.

Soon, time began to dilate. The more I wanted it to end, the slower time moved (fucking duh :) I reached a point where it seemed to taske 15-30 minutes for the clock to advance a single minute. I put on an Ozric Tentacles CD (Strangeitude) that's very happy/bouncy/trippy. After what seemed like an hour I looked at it and it was only on track 3. A couple times I caught myself starting to slip into time-feedback loops where events seemed to repeat themselves, but I'd been watching carefully for them (I'd recently helped a friend out who got caught in a really nasty feedback loop for an entire acid trip so I was very aware of the problems they could cause) and managed to diffuse them pretty easily as soon as I noticed them starting to form.

The real weirdness came when the clocks seemed to slip back 2 minutes. This messed with me pretty hardcore, as I really wanted it to end. I started to have doubts as to whether or not I'd come down at all when the stuff wore off (we've all heard stories of those folks who never came down from their last trip and remained permanently in that state). I felt that the intensity of my mind being that open would drive me crazy if that happened. I managed to hold it together but my grip was tenuous at times. The second time that time seemed to slide back a couple minutes I turned and looked real hard at my cd player. The Play light was on, but the for what felt like a full 10 seconds, the counter didn't change and no music came out. I looked away and the music started again. Around 3 am I felt the filters slowly start to slip back into place. By 3:30 it felt like a 3 hit acid trip just after the peak and I started to feel really good. By the time I left my apt., I felt absolutely excellent. The rest of the day went fine and I slept 11 hours that night. The following night I rented Altered States -- I'd never seen it before and it seemed appropos. It freaked me a bit too much and I had to watch something else (in this case Natural Born Killers :) to chill out enough to go to bed :)

I learbed a whole lot from this experience, and while it was pretty rough riding for a while, I don't regret it in the least. First off, I was amazed at how easily accessible my personal shit is and I look forward to using mushrooms (though prolly more in the 3-4 gram dose range) to help work through some of them. I also learned that I *do* need to slow down my lifestyle a bit -- give the grey matter a break. Additionally, I came away with tremendous awe and resspect for the human Mind and consciousness. I think that with better preperation (creating the proper mindset and giving myself a full 48 hours of recovery time after the effects wear off) dosaegs of this level will yield trmendous shamanic experiences. I'll want to have a sitter with me for those voyages, so that I'll feel more able to completely let go (though it'll prolly take several tries to be able to do that -- I'm a control freak -- totally relinquishing it is really tough for me). I see incredible expolratory potential for me in these states and the opportunity to really expand my consciousness. The experience also made me see just how arbitrary and subjective our "normal" perception of time is, which seemed to give me some insight into death. It's hard to explain, butt he idea of eternal consciousness/awareness seems much more plausible now that I've seen just how subjective perceptioins of time/space really are. I'm in awe. I want to read as much as possible now about those states and the shamanic journey in general (book recommendations are always welcome).