LIght Bringer

Before I begin with this report, I would like to state that it will probably be fairly long. This is because I am an obsessive archivist as well as a scribe and wish to have this document for my own files. Seeing as the trip reports contained in the Shroomery archives were of assistance to me in my research before I chose to experience mushrooms, I have decided that I would like to contribute to this wealth of information by posting my own story. I hope it serves a good purpose and provides first-time mushroom users with some valuable information.
For starters, I am not an active user of psychedelics or any type of drug for that matter. Though I am a very spiritual person, I do not subscribe to the theory that drugs can be the “be all, end all” of spirituality. In fact, I am strongly opposed to this notion. That said, I have desired for some time to experience a psychedelic trip for the purpose of self-observation from a new angle. I felt that mushrooms were my best option because I did not wish to put anything unnatural into my body. Once, in highschool I used DXM and found it to be a truly wretched experience and was turned off to the idea of tripping on any chemical because of that experience. Part of the reason I chose to do mushrooms was for the purpose of facing a fear/anxiety about psychedelics and to eliminate that anxiety. I decided that I would be sure to focus on the idea of bringing light to those around me who wished to receive it. I also decided that I would make some preparations before actually eating the mushrooms. For a week before the experience, I began eating lighter and avoiding most meats. I would drink a cleansing drink in the morning and evening and I meditated every day. On Thursday, the day before the trip, I meditated for many hours and after lifting weights with my cousin in the evening, I went down to the beach where my brother and sister both have beach houses this summer. I stayed at my younger brother’s place, but would eat the mushrooms at my sister’s place the following night. My cousin whom I had lifted with also wanted to come down and eat mushrooms. He had done it several times before so I asked him many questions about his experiences. I had talked to many people and researched the mushrooms as thoroughly as possible before consuming them.
On Friday evening, as I sat on my brother’s sofa, I felt a wave of anxiety come over me and this frustrated me because I did not want the emotion to ruin the experience for me. I went upstairs and meditated and had soon regained my focus. Afterwards I went over to my sister’s place where we waited for everyone to show up. All told, there were about ten of us altogether who would partake in the festivities. When everyone had arrived and shelled out their money, we ate the mushrooms. I ate a ½ of an 8th, which is the recommended beginner’s dosage. My sister ate the same amount and my cousin and a few others ate an entire 8th.
I did not know most of the people I was shrooming with, but I quickly found that I liked all of them except for one individual, T, who is very loud and obnoxious. When he does quiet down and attempt to contribute to the conversation, he exhibits an overdeveloped capacity for boring others around him.
I quickly became interested in J, one of my sister’s co-workers who shroomed with us. As I was talking with her, I noticed an increasing sensation of lightness overtaking me and soon I was aware that colors around me were a little brighter than usual. Soon everyday remarks and comments began to strike me as amusing, then funny, then flat out hysterical. The first visual distortion came when I went outside with J and her friend A, who had eaten an entire 8th. When I stepped outside I was immediately startled by a bright light appearing at my side. I was startled and taken aback. Then when I glanced over again I laughed and commented “Oh, shit! It’s just the wall.” More appropriately, it was a light reflecting onto the side wall of the house, but nonetheless J and A were thrown into a fit of hysterics by the comment and I soon joined them. We sat outside and joked about many things that I don’t remember right now. Then we went back into the house where we were invited to join in on a bowl that was being passed around. We accepted happily and as I smoked I became aware that the whole atmosphere of the room was filled with an almost tangible humor energy. I imagined the comments coming from the circle as being little bits of energy that leave one person’s body and enter another’s and that this must be the explanation of what makes the shrooming experience so fun. I felt that the mushrooms were functioning as though they were exerting a conscious energy meant to link the thoughts of the group. This only made me laugh more.
Soon we found ourselves in my sister’s bedroom smoking again and having lots of fun. I attempted to talk with J about spiritual topics though I felt my abilities to focus were increasingly waning. J had told me that many people suggested to her that she should read The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield and I told her that I had just read it and would highly recommend it to her. Even with the mounting intensity of the shrooms, I was still entirely myself behind all of the trippy occurrences around me. I felt really happy and extraordinarily peaceful. I read, with the last of my ability to do so, a few excerpts from Gifts From A Course In Miracles to J, but I realized that neither of us were in much of a state of mind to focus on reading or focusing on the book so we just discussed spiritual concepts between ourselves.
It wasn’t long before my sister suggested that we head down to the beach. We were not allowed to be on Dewey Beach after midnight, so we had to walk past the jetty into Rehobeth. T and two other guys, R and D, stayed behind at the house but came out to look for us a little later. Me, my sister, my cousin, J, A and another girl, M, were all on the beach together and it was there that I really noticed the effects of the shrooms. Sitting in the sand, I noticed spiral trails and grids appearing across the sky and I saw that the clouds were shifting and contorting in very abnormal ways. I was surprised that I was getting visuals off of a half 1/8th but I wasn’t complaining. I was having too good a time. I began to focus on the fact that there were two different conversations going on at once in our group and found it very amusing that I could focus on both of them simultaneously. Then J commented that she was making the same observation and I found that to be pretty cool and it seemed to justify my theory of our thoughts being linked at that time.
My cousin and I then walked down by the water and let the waves come up over our feet. The ocean was awesome to behold at that time because there were streaks of lightning running across the sky (literally, not just because of the shrooms) and the foam of the ocean looked very ethereal, as though it were not water at all, but rather some magical fluid that was yet unknown to man. We talked about the old days and our zany family and its many capers and misadventures. It was at this point that I realized I had a pendant in my pocket which had broken a few days earlier. I had always associated strongly with the symbol on the pendant; that of Ophiuchus, the 13th sign of the zodiac, but lately I have been coming into a new means of expression. I found it interesting that this pendant broke right before I went to the beach and right at a time of great change in my life and it broke randomly when I had been walking through the woods a few days beforehand, just out of the blue. I removed the broken pendant from my pocket and hurled it outward, commending it to the sea. As it splashed into the water, I could see sparks arising from the area where it landed. I wondered how far the currents would carry it. Where would it be tomorrow? A year from now? Ten years? These thoughts got me thinking about the timeless and the mysterious elements of life. It was right at that moment that we saw flashlights and noticed that police were coming. J and A took off, but I felt nothing but content the whole time. The police spoke with my sister and asked her if we were on Dewey or Rehobeth. When they realized they had no jurisdiction where we were, they moped off to go bother other people and my cousin and I joked about playing base-runners with them if they sent Rehobeth cops to bother us. We’d just keep walking back and forth over the jetty. Fortunately it did not come to this, but we were separated from J and A and had no idea where they had gone. Soon we decided to leave the beach as it had begun to rain. We headed back to my sister’s house to smoke again.
While we were smoking, T and D were watching Merlin: The Return in the other room. We would periodically hear screams coming from the other room and thought that it was D and T who were making the sounds. Every time we heard them, we were thrown into fits of laughter. I suggested that everyone be quiet so we could hear where they were coming from and my sister said “No. Just let it happen naturally.” The moment she said this, we heard a really loud scream that sounded utterly goofy and I found myself on the floor, laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.
Eventually everyone dispersed and I sat in my sister’s room listening to music on my headphones. I was listening to Vintersorg’s Cosmic Genesis which sounds really amazing on shrooms. These were the lyrics that struck me as most interesting:

Formulas of an ethereal intellect strayed through black and empty planes, into the auditorium of evolution. In devious ways magic came and created a spectra of fiery celestial bodies. Since then they've been a cynosure to ulterior worlds, beyond the fifth element.

The bodies are like a stratum of dust on a dark linen background
spherical architectures vomiting coronas
The sacred hemispheres are the compass to eternity,
my notion is unison with its sidereal modesty

Rise! solar spirits in the caravan of supernovas,
give me the palmist visual sensation
I'm a newborn in this omnipotent laboratory,
fulfilled with balance and harmony in a timeless nexus

Cosmic Genesis, galactic powers astir
Cosmic Genesis, as the magnitude expands
Cosmic Genesis, I watch the vista transform
Cosmic Genesis, blessed by the stellarwind

These lyrics normally have a great deal of meaning to me but in context of the mushroom experience they took on a new light. I was then called out to the living room as people were wondering where I was and I had noticed that I was being absorbed into the floor from staring at it too long.
The rest of the evening, things began to die down. I lay outside on the hammock for a while and when I noticed the skies getting lighter I suggested that we walk down to the beach for the sunrise. My sister had spoken to J and A on her cellphone. They had gone behind someone’s house and were sitting there all evening.
When we got to the beach, the scene was amazing. I stood by the sea, watching a myriad of colors that would have been beautiful no matter what mindstate I was in and I noticed I had brought my watch. I looked at it and it was 6:00 on the dot. As I turned to my left, I saw J and A approaching and I remembered something that J had said earlier; that the trip is much like a story. It has a beginning, a development and a conclusion and usually everything seems to relate at the time of the experience. I recall feeling that this reunion of everyone in our group, after we had all gone separate ways, was the story of my experience. Later, I stood with J by the water and we saw dolphins swimming close to the shore and a man had brought his dog down to the sea for an early morning swim. The sun was rising and could be looked upon without damage to the eyes. It looked like a little red-orange fireball in the distance.
Soon we went back upstairs and I ate pasta at 7 in the morning. J and I went and sat on the hammock, both of us sufficiently sober by this point and we discussed spirituality and she kept asking me what to focus on and I kept telling her it was so easy. Just listen to yourself. Meditate, live in the moment and focus on bringing light to others around you. She asked “Is there anything I should change about myself that you can see?” I think she expected me to point out some flaw that I noticed in her personality so I elected to surprise her with the most honest answer I could think of. “Give yourself more credit.” We said our goodbyes and I slept for much of the day.
In conclusion, I have learned that the trip experience can be very fun and informative if the experimenter goes about it properly and I will probably do it again sometime in the future, but I still do not feel that it is spiritual in and of itself. The natural mindset of the experimenter is ultimately that which makes the trip good or bad. Bring Light to others in every situation and surely they will reciprocate.

-r