Sight has no signifigance when the mushroom spirit lurks in my mind

I dosed 1.5g dried Ps. Cubensis; I just wanted to get a feel for the trip, no crazy ego loss, no disappearing into oblivion. Nothing happened after about an hour so I went ahead and took another .8. That put me at 2.3. Another 30 minutes passed. btw I’m in my 20s, 5'7" and weigh 255.

The first effect I noticed was a brightening of color. The light being thrown on the wall from my lamp changed from a soft yellow to a strong orange. The gray of the shadows disappeared, and was replaced by a dull blue. Around this time my trip sitters settled in to watch a movie (a horror movie: 28 days later. Figures.). I laid down on the couch and stared at the venetian blinds. The sun was setting, and the light filtered through them, creating smooth light gradients on each slat. The blinds swayed slowly, thus slightly changing the way the light filtered through. The more I stared at them, the more they appeared to sway. It took me a few minutes to realize that the motion I was seeing wasn’t entirely real. I was coming up.

Anything that I wasn’t looking directly at, was slowly breathing. My whole brain latched on this rhythm, and everything around me breathed and swayed in time. I repositioned myself, so that I was laying on my back, staring at the ceiling. As I gradually headed towards my peak, I noticed a 3rd effect kicking in. The ceiling was one of those sprayed ceilings with little bumps all over it. The lighting in the room cast long and highly contrasted shadows across the bumps. As I stared at the ceiling, patterns began to emerge from the bumps. The first pattern to emerge was what looked like veins; first red, then green. They pushed out of the ceiling, then faded away, then appeared again in another color. I giggled at the novelty of the whole thing and tried to tell my wife how cool it was. Eventually the patterns materializing on the ceiling changed from veins to all sorts of things. Aliens, egyptian-esque art, tribal art, aztec style art, faces; they were constantly surfacing, gradually moving, then disappearing.

A 4th effect gradually become noticeable. The visual patterns began to layer. By this I mean, I would see the ceiling bumps, and on top of that I would see another layer of ceiling bumps slightly warped and moving, and on top of that I would see another layer, warped flowing and moving in another direction. The effect was that the ceiling was like layers of water flowing, slowly and rhythmically in all directions. The effect was soothing and beautiful, rhythmic and smooth. My mind was going a million miles an hour, but when I would periodically snap out of it, the soft rhythm of the trip, manifested on the ceiling, would be there soothing me. The impression in my mind at the time was that the ceiling was like a mother; a caring and wise mother smiling down on me, watching me and keeping me safe.

Along with the mother sensation came the colors. The whole ceiling flowed strongly back and forth, appearing to pour over the walls at times. Out of the waves and patterns in the bumps on the ceiling came yet more patterns, similar to the pattern on a giraffe, except this pattern was changing colors as it shifted. These patterns weren’t fractal at all, just gently changing copies of what I could see around me.

My wife, who is quite the artist, created some pretty interesting pieces that we framed and hung above our couch. The pieces are simply white construction paper with bits of black construction paper arranged on top of it. One particular piece is a collection of lines of variable length and size placed randomly, but perpendicular to each other. As I stared at it, the pieces began moving like a machine, pushing and driving each other around somewhat like the pistons drive the cam shaft in a car.

I decided to close my eyes and see what would happen. The closed eye visuals weren’t very impressive at all. I could see a bunch of 3D blocks arranged in something like a damaged sphere similar to the incomplete deathstar. The problem was that the field of view was very very narrow. it was almost like looking through really small binoculars. I lost interest pretty quickly because it wasn’t a huge sweeping cool scene, so I continued staring at the ceiling.

Earlier on in the trip I got up and looked out my back door at the sky. The sun was setting, the sky was purple, and the clouds were pink. The contrast was tremendous. The beauty struck me so quickly and so hard I immediately turned around, almost scared. I told my wife I wasn’t ready for that yet, and went back to laying on the couch and watching the ceiling. In retrospect there was nothing amazing or unique about the clouds or the sky, but I felt scared when I looked at it. I’m still not sure why that happened.

There were a few other smaller visuals and effects that occurred during the course of my experience. Throughout the trip I had no concept of time. Time wasn’t going backwards, but I could not tell at all how long I was gone. I could hear the audio track for the movie my tripsitters were watching. One particular song changed my mindset to that of an explorer in an ancient tomb. As the song picked up, the bumps in the ceiling formed egyptian style art and the lighting on the wall shot upwards, appearing like the set of so many movies that want to convey the excavation of a tomb. I was transported there mentally, feeling like I was lying in a tomb staring at its walls. Sometime during the trip, I looked at my wife’s face and the lines and shadows on her face were dark and almost appeared to be dancing and jumping around.

Throughout the trip, my back hurt, I was unusually hot, my stomach hurt, and I yawned, peed (not on myself) and I fidgeted a lot. For the most part I was just really uncomfortable which is a typical symptom. There was a tingly physical body high, but I didn’t really care about that or pay attention to it. Coming up and coming back down really annoyed me because I don’t like "being high". I like to be in full possession of my senses and I like to be able to walk straight and think straight and function correctly. As I approached peak, peaked and was coming down from the peak, I could not only think clearly, but also at a million miles and hour. I was preoccupied with the whole influx of sensory input, so it was totally worth it at that point.

Now on to the mental part of the trip!

While experiencing all of the sensations I described above, my brain was going a million miles an hour. I wanted this trip to just be a taste, and for my later, more serious trips, to be a real introspective look at myself and at the world around me. Well it turned out that I did get a dose of the introspection on this trip, and let me tell you it is SO hard to piece together and to even begin to describe what I was thinking and how it fit together, but I’m gonna try. An important detail to understand here is the following description is of concepts and feelings I had that were not visual at all. The impressions that stuck in my head can only be described and related as something visual. Let me also add that, though I did not physically see them, the sensation was much greater than sight...

First, throughout the trip I felt that sight, though being probably one of our most important senses, was a tiny insignificant part of the sensory input system of a human. The whole trip is about sensory input and the sudden influx of it in its pure form, without our brains filtering out what we feel is irrelevant. I felt like I was linked to everything around me through a web like network, but I couldn’t communicate or feel or understand the connection. I just saw it there like a million blood vessels connecting me to everything and everyone. Since I wasn’t limited by field of view, I could see 360 degrees around me. The other people in the room appeared as a concentration of the network fibers, and the objects as more of an outline of the fibers. I still don’t understand this sensation because I couldn’t do anything with it, couldn’t learn or touch it or speak to it. I just felt it.

The mother feeling I mentioned previously was the strongest, and most confusing of the experience. I had a great childhood. I wasn’t abused, or poor, or a stuck up rich kid. I played in the woods a lot, rode bikes, all that stuff. My mom and dad were awesome, yet the mother feeling I got was totally unlike my real mother; It was just an ultra comforting, safe, wise guardian feeling. I’m not sure why, but my brain immediately said "mother." Another way to describe it is like a goddess with her arms raised, and her hair defying gravity, floating around in thick locks. I’m not into eastern religion, mythology or mysticism but I’m sure there is a strong parallel in those beliefs to the presence I felt. Also, as I recall the mother sensation, I feel as though I was sleeping underneath a giant mushroom, looking up at its gills almost like a shade tree. a huge colorful mushroom shade tree.

Something I probably should have mentioned a little sooner is a bit about me. I’m a very logical and organized thinker, yet I forget stuff very easily. I remember impressions rather than facts. for instance, I don’t remember very much about the "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" series, but I remember the impression many of the scenes gave me. I forget the plot of a movie a day later, but I remember if I thought it sucked or not. Also, I love to sort things out with lists, and i like to understand how things work. the first half of my trip was inadvertently analytical. I wanted to know and understand this new experience and I was trying to, which was both good and bad. the result was that I resisted the trip for the first half. I've heard people talk about just letting it go and not resisting and all that, but it’s hard to understand the whole concept until you’re there and back the first time. I have no idea why I resisted it, or even what I was resisting. What was I scared of? All I know is I could feel the precipice, and I was walking the edge of it, and if I fell over to the other side something would change, like there would be a huge explosion. it felt like I was looking over the edge of a cliff. Was that the path to ego loss? I feel with a bit of focus I could have 'jumped' so to speak, and gone to that place... but I was a coward. After this sensation passed, I began to have more vivid hallucinations and a little more peace and comfort in the trip. In fact, following this is when the mother sensation appeared.

While resisting this trip something interesting struck me. I could see how beautiful everything was, and I could see how far my brain extended and I began to understand the infinite nature of the world we live in. The thing that struck me was this example. If i found a painting that was utterly beautiful, i would want to sit and stare at it. I would stare for 2 reasons: 1, because it is beautiful and i want to partake of the beauty. and 2, because it is so beautiful it deserves to be stared at. I want to give something to it for being so incredible. I would feel like i cheated or broke a law if i basked in its beauty and then left it or forgot it. Now, imagine i find a room full of equally beautiful paintings. Each one as beautiful as the last, each one deserving my infinite adoration, and I, wanting to examine each detail for eternity. How can I "finish" enjoying a single painting? I can't. How can i even begin to imagine finishing enjoying a room full of them. I can't even imagine it.

Another example I later thought of is the infinite nature of a piece of literature. I, as the author of this report, can place any word I want anywhere. I can rearrange sentences, use unusual structures, rhythms, synonyms, misspellings, anything. I can make this report however I want, and many of the ways I do it could be great, awesome, horrible, the entire gamut. there is an infinite way for me to relate my story. I wish I could make each iteration so that there is at least one version that will speak directly to you, the reader. but I can’t. im not infinite. it makes me sad that I can’t forever appreciate each thing in this world that deserves eternal admiration. The trip is that. It reminds me of the infinite number of things I can do and cant do; how infinite the world and nature is, and how finite I am.

There are a million places to go, a million things to do, a million people to talk to, a million ideas to consider. I will not experience even a fraction of them, and it makes me sad.

Another strong sensation was that of the interior of my mind. I remember telling my wife "you remember that game I played for a while, psychonaughts (PC game)? remember how you could go into the minds of the people in the game and each mind was arranged in a way that reflected each persons persona? bingo." My mind was like a collection of corroded metal rods welded together to form an angular and rigid structure floating in the center of a swirling blue and white sphere. The impression I got was the structure was my mind, and the swirling was reality and circumstance. I felt as though most people have a closed structure, like a regular house with windows, and that they can only see out the windows; they only have a few different perspectives. My structure looked rusted and badly constructed. BUT I could see everything all around me. I could see what most people couldn't, or wouldn't. One problem is that I could never rest comfortably inside my mind. I didn't have a ceiling or roof or chairs, just cold metal bars and no escape. In this case, the blessing became a curse. Compared to others' minds, mine was more like a cell that i couldn't escape or change. The metal was firmly and permanantly placed, and no amount of mental force could reshape it. I could see how horribly built it was, and i wanted to change it and to fix it, but I couldn’t. I was allowed to see what's wrong in myself and in the world, but im powerless to fix what is wrong with me. While others are comfortable in their cozy minds and are content with their views and perspectives of reality, I'm cursed with seeing and knowing more and never being able to rest easily. It sounds incredibly conceited now that I've typed it out, but thats not because it is, it's because im explaining it wrong somehow. I'll keep working it out and update this portion of the essay once I've determined a beter way to describe it.

Finally, throughout the trip I was thinking about what I whiner I am lol. I complain a lot, and I’m pretty much a jerk. Fortunately for me and rest of the world, I like to stay inside. The few friends I have (count 3, plus my wife) I love to death and don’t treat them badly (with the exception of one person whom I treat like crap, but in a nice way. You know who you are). In fact in my twisted view of the world, I only treat people badly whom I think deserve to be treated badly (which is a horrible way to think... and I know it, but I can’t change it... see above paragraph). I mean, it’s not like, "oh you’re black, im gonna be mean to you" its like "oh you walked into my shop and instead of waiting for me to come to the counter, you started pounding on it and yelling 'hello' so im gonna charge you double". The thing is, this isn’t some great revelation for me. I know what a jerk I am, so I wasn’t imbued with any great new wisdom in this aspect; just reminded that most people don’t want to be around me because of me. It’s actually not something that bothers me because I accept it and I accept that I can’t seem to change it (though I know it’s probably wrong to accept that I can’t change it... see above paragraph again).

This, for the most part, was my trip. I hope this little essay will give you, the reader, insight into the psychadelic world, and help you understand what you have, or will experience on your journey. Thanks for taking time to read it!