Unexpected Lessons

This is about an experience I had just yesterday (10th of December, 2004) and which feels like the mushroom experience from which I learnt the most. I hadn't expected it to be this powerful. It was my fourth time doing shrooms.

I set out with my brother that evening, actually expecting a light, relaxed high with not too much of the emotional sensitivity you get from shrooms. It turned out to be quite different. We had made a 650 ml tea out of a 30 gram bunch of fresh, potent, Mexican Psilocybe Cubensis. I was very nervous when we started drinking, so I did not have the heart to drink even half of it. I think I drank about 200 ml in total. This led me to expect that I would probably not notice any effects, which had a large impact on the rest of my trip. This I will explain later on.

We started drinking the tea on a parking lot near some kind of sports park. The surroundings were quite nice, but I didn't really pay attention to them because of my nervousness. We walked down a path while drinking and I started to feel the first effects that I usually feel: a slight change in headspace and an increase in my nervousness. That is why I hate the onset mushrooms have. I told myself it would pass and it eventually did. After half an hour since I started drinking, I noticed I was having difficulty speaking. That is, I could not find the exact words for some things that I wanted to say and I lacked the energy to search for them. This is something that kind of annoys me, which also makes the onset more difficult for me. Luckily, I always get used to it.

So the trip started. I was still expecting myself to be peaking at the T+1:00h point, though. We looked through a field of trees of about 20m wide to the road. The light coming from behind the trees gave them that silhouette effect which I kinda like I noticed the familiar symmetry in everything. Trees seemed in my peripheral vision seemed to be mirrored, like they had the same branches (but mirrored) on either side of them. I would have thought it was awesome, if I wasn't so nervous. I guess I am really fond of my sanity and I hate to see it go. (I don't have feel like that when smoking weed, though...interesting)

We decided to walk back to the parking lot where we had left our bicycles earlier. I felt okay to ride back home and sit around, because it was quite cold outside. My brother wasn't sure if he could ride, though, so I suggested we tried it on the parking lot before going out into traffic. Then I noticed that when I closed my eyes, I would see beautiful pictures on the insides of my eyelids. I remember seeing bright silhouettes of two hands unfolding and releasing two or three flowers, which stopped moving and turned into a kaleidoscopic animation. Awesome.

Riding was a piece of cake, so we slowly set off on our journey home. Actually, I think a (sober) person would walk faster than we were riding. But that didn't matter. On the way we had a conversation which I only partly remember, with the usual insights mushrooms give you. Note that at this moment, I felt like I was almost done tripping. My brother pointed out to me that I was far from being done. In response, I would think "okay, so I'm still tripping, but it'll surely be over in half an hour". Boy, was I wrong.

During this conversation we decided that it would be better to go to a friend of ours, called Davy. On the way, I tried to call him several times, but failed because I could keep my balance with one hand. We decided to stop to call him and we did. After a few minutes of standing still, talking and laughing we decided to continue our journey, but we still hadn't called him. We laughed at it and I finally called him. On the way to Davy's place we continued our insight-giving conversation, while I was still feeling like I was almost done tripping. I'm not sure, but I think this was something that kept me happy during my trip, as I don't like my sanity going away and I hate my ego being crushed. The feeling of getting back my sanity was nice and at some points it actually did come back, due to the wavy character of cubensis: you will experience several peaks, the first or second one being the strongest. I don't know if I would have been very happy had I realised that I still had a few more peaks coming. It didn't matter, really, when a peak hit me again I just seemed to accept it.

After spending about an hour at Davy's, I decided it was time to go home. I had a nice time at his place. It was quite comfortable socially as he's an old friend of mine. We used to be best friends, but he, at one point, spent more time with other friends and I did not really see him a lot. Just when I decided that our friendship was lost he contacted me again. Now we see eachother quite regularly, although I don't feel like our friendship has been completely restored. While in his room, I felt thankful for him trying, because I don't think I would have done that. I didn't tell him, though, as he was really drunk and also tripping on the rest of our shroomtea, and it did not feel like the appropriate time to tell him that.

This was something I should have done better: I had an appointment the next day and I had to get enough sleep. It was 1:45 am by now, and I still was still thinking that I was done tripping. If I had tripped during the day, sleep wouldn't have been an issue. I think it's very important to avoid ANY issues when tripping.

Riding home was fun. I had a big grin on my face the whole time, and my emotions felt very genuine. When high on weed I tend to smile, too, but it feels more like a forced grin, though. During this trip I did not really have OEV's (apart from those trees in the beginning). I did not see patterns on walls and such. I have had that before, but not this time. The most interesting visuals I had with my eyes closed. I would speed through tunnels and see kaleidoscopic patterns and animations, which were all very detailed. I say silhouettes of animals (deer, frogs, dogs) and plants, mainly flowers.

During my ride home I decided to take a detour to my primary school. A lot of childhood memories came back here. It felt very good. I also visited a newly built shopping centre in the neighbourhood. I didn't like how it looked. It's presence there was too strong and it didn't fit in the overall lay-out of that neighbourhood. People can design such stupid things sometimes.

When I got home, my father was already asleep. I saw his electrical chessboard on the table. Somehow, I felt a lot of love for him then. I have had some issues lately about my parents, not feeling like I really knew them as real people other than parents. When I saw that chessboard I felt like I saw I bit of his personality, something I really needed at that time. I went upstairs to my room, but left immediately with a sigh when I saw the mess I had left. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. All this time I felt very shroomy, but did not have any real visual effects, other than my vision seeming really sharp and detailed (something which I rarely have when sober, because I have contact lenses).

When I went to bed things got less pleasant, because I tried to do something which I couldn't: sleeping. My body was extremely tired, though, so I could not get up and sit around. Lying down was not very pleasant either, as I have repetitive strain injury and my back hurt like hell. I was a little annoyed at that point, but I noticed that it went away when I forced myself to lay completely still and relaxed. After all, I kind of enjoyed myself in bed. I figured that if I couldn't sleep, I might as well enjoy the CEV's. And I did. I also tried meditating, but it wouldn't work, because I was too tired. While riding out my trip, I had a desire to talk to my brother, but he was still at Davy's place.

The most important aspect of tripping, in my opinion, are the insights I gain from it. If I don't pay attention to them, there is no reason for me to do mushrooms. The visuals are nice and enjoyable, but not dominant and they are not the reason why I trip. I really think mushrooms should be legal in any country in the world, because they give genuine insights which can help the tripping person in real life (next to dumb, but funny, shroomy insights, which I think any moron can distinguish from real insights). The fact that they're 'drugs', should be no reason for people not to do them. God (I am a non-believer) does not speak of drugs, but of sin. Keep in mind that governments call drugs 'sins' and God (or whoever wrote that Bible) never did.

I fell sound asleep and woke up. My appointment cancelled. Damn it.