freedom is possible for everyone

Preface - I'm 22, smoked cannabis regulary for over a year and tripped on amanita muscaria once. I guess I could describe myself as 'spiritially oriented', by which I mean I've had interest (and some weird experiences) in dreamworld (and other different realities) since I was a kid. I've tripped on mushrooms 3 times and ate a small amount once before my first trip, as a 'handshake' or greeting if you will. I write and speak fluent English, although it's not my native language and I have not written anything long in quite some time, so expect some weird expressions.

My use of cannabis has developed some almost shamanic qualities past six months, especially after one peculiar occasion, in which I was able to be one (by accident, not really knowing what I was doing) with nature by some help from a tree, or maybe I should say the tree was some kind of a portal. At first I started to feel the tree and by that tree I started to feel the forest around it etc. This happened before I had ever eaten mushrooms.

I drank about 70 self picked semilanceata in a tea the first time I tripped on shrooms, but that was early in the season, so the later picked 20 (from the same spot) I ate the second time were actually stronger in potency. I also smoked more cannabis the second time, which also had great effect. From these first two trips I realized hemp works really great for me with shrooms, it helps in letting go of the egocentric thought patterns and to keep the mind at rest and understand my body better. So for the third trip, I decided I would go easy on mushrooms and see what can be done with meditating. I felt this should be done in nature.

I asked a very good friend of mine, who I trust completely, to be my sitter and he said yes, so of to the woods we were :) I had 30 shrooms and 2 small joints of cannabis with me and after a long, wet and dark walk we were in the middle of the forrest. I ate something around 15-20 of the semilanceata with pink grapefruit juice and my friend ate the rest. The shrooms were coming on very slowly and we decided to walk to a nearby fireplace. I was starting to feel the, by this time familiar, effects. While walking it felt like my body was just this puppet I was making to jump around in this game of physical reality.

After we got to the fireplace my friend made nice camp fire and we sat around it just chatting. At this time I was questioning the whole purpose of this trip, the idea that I was out in the woods playing shaman instead of being home with my girlfriend just felt ridiculous. My mind was wondering a lot and I couldn't really concentrate on anything, so I thought I couldn't possibly start meditating (which I don't think would really have been the case). We decided to smoke a joint and it really helped me to keep my mind at rest and also made the mushroom experience a lot stronger. The fire was really hypnotic and we just sat there, having good conversations. At this time I thought tha t nothing big would really happen, so I was kind of letting go of the thought, that I should be out there tripping hard. I felt absolutely great, like my mind was filling every cell of my body and everything felt so right. I felt very much in tune with everything around me and was thinking very compassionate thoughts. We decided to smoke more hemp.

The second joint had made my mouth dry, so I took a sip of water. That's when it all begun. The feeling of water sliding down my throat focused my mind on flowing and suddenly I was able to feel all these liquids flowing around in my body. I was losing touch with reality and was able to say to my friend, that I'm tripping hard. My vision went crazy and I couldn't really move, but then I decided to completely let go and at the same instant, all the hallucinations stopped, but the same time I left my body. I was all over the place. If I concentrated on a piece of wood lying in the ground, I felt I was the piece of wood. By the moment I thought of unity, I was filled with compassion, love and joy and felt the universe flow through me. I was getting worried about my friend, as I thought the situation might look scary to him. As being out of body, I wasn't able to speak, so I decided to 'go back' and say good bye to my friend and tell him what was going on. I got back to my body with suprising ease, but using it was a struggle, because all my mind wanted to do was to be one with everything around it.

So I explained to my friend I'm having out of body experiences and that it is of no use to speak to me or to expect me to speak and so on, I can't really remember all the things I said. I then went on with my tripping and realised that once getting back to 'safety' it's not so easy to let go of it again. I started to shake, but focused my thoughts on letting go and doing some meditation pulled my mind out of my body again. Suddenly I was in this void, with nothing in it than myself. I remembered everything around me and existence as 'I' seemed pointless. Would death be the answer? Some kind of relieving sadness filled me, as I embraced the thought of completely ceasing to exists. I had a vague memory of something I was, I remembered my name, but it had no meaning. I decided to let go. I started to lose grip on anything that was in my mind, there was nothing besides the moment, the moment in which I was letting go of my existence. And then I died, just to realize that all that had died was my ego. I embraced life full of miraclous joy and laughed at the overly serious thoughts and feelings that 'dying' had made me feel. I think the void was actually my ego and letting go of that void (which I thought was me) was actually completely letting go of the ego, thus being able to experience life without 'I' being more than 'you' or 'we'. Thinking of 'everything' made me feel everything around me and filled me with compassion.

I managed to keep myself in that state for 3-4 hours, dropping out of it twice, which was at both times very confusing. I was back to 'normal'. I was able to say, that something was different, but not to say what. I remember that just seconds before everything was perfect and clear and now everything seemed so confusing. My thoughts were going along the lines 'what am I doing, why am I here'. Then I remembered there was nothing to do, no mission, just to be and was able to get back to that state of just being for the sake of everything. The third time I dropped and after I realised again what was going on, I felt I wouldn't be able to get back there because I was coming down and my mind didn't feel pure enough to be able to pull something like that off sober. So I just gently floated along the flow concentrating on honesty, clearness, wisdom, compassion, love etc. to make as enjoyable return as possible.

I've come to realize, that our own mind and egocentric thoughts are everything there is between us and freedom and I have chosen to be free. I'm letting go of the games I've played one by one and the more I do it the better I feel. It's just that everytime you try to let go of something, you think you will miss it, which makes letting go so hard. But each time I let go, I realize I've lost nothing and gained a lot.

After writing this down (it all happened something like 4-6 weeks ago) some funny incidents popped into my head about the trip, but I'm too tired to write them down right now, but maybe I'll get back to it some other time.

Always follow your intuition, it will lead you through.