Trip Report:
Shrooms (1/4 dose)
I'm not much of a drug user. I guess I'm cheap. Only time I've tried anything has been when the experience has been offered to me and I trust that person or situation when it comes up which ends up being not more than a joint here and there typically once a year or so.
I'm in my mid forties. My only experience with hallucinogens was two tabs of acid back in my early 20s in college at a friends house. It was a fun hallucination. Very reminiscent of the Red Hot Chili Pepper video, "Behind the Sun." Highlights of that trip included writing poetry and listening to music when, while listening to "The Wind Cries Mary" by Jimi Hendrix, the words from the melodies would engage directly with specific words in my poetry. It was such a beautiful experience, filled with colors. Lots of dancing colors. I recall writing, "When you fall in love, the world turns into a sunset" and that silly scribble seemed like some heavenly powerful message.
I was getting over a girl at the time and at one point was having conversations with her and understanding that the melancholy I felt was why love itself was the most powerful, beautiful aspect of anything.
Other memories from that trip include a friend eating a burrito and how funny it looked. And my curious confusion over how far my feet seemed from me as if I saw things out of a fish eye lens.
Trip Planning
Fast forward, 22 years later. I became friends with a new co-worker. When we first met, we wound up grabbing a beer and hit it off instantly when the conversation of hallucinogens and tripping came up.
6 months later, I ran a marathon and we agreed to celebrate the marathon by running 10 miles the following week in nature and then to trip on shrooms. My friend is a regular user of just about anything and he assured me that the shroom trip was much more forgiving than an acid trip.
I trusted him and after 3 months planning and then our run that Saturday morning, he gave me "my share" of shrooms, a quarter(7 grams). I hadn't researched what a level 1 - 5 trip (afterwards, I read and learned) was and confidently ingested the quarter fearlessly. This was about a sandwich bag worth of dried shrooms that tasted like levened bread from a communion with the texture of stale dried yet flaccid pig skins. I rationalized that I trusted my friend that all would be ok according to his prediction. So at 6:45am I ingested 1/4 and as he predicted by 7:15am, things would change.
Setting:
We were on a rolling hill forest overlooking a valley. The weather was cool and foggy. The rolling hills were golden brush colored. But by 7:15, when the trip commenced, I noticed immediately that the rolling hills became green. We were surrounded by various tall redwoods and evergreen trees.
Stage 1:
The first thing I notice as we walked about and discussed our trip was the ease of walking and how the rough rocky ground now felt like a carpet and how walking uphill seemed effortless. At first, I noticed that the hills and details of the trees became prettier and filled with color. I also noticed that everything appeared sharply focused. At this stage, I assumed that the hallucinations were simply this and that's when my friend warned me, "oh this is NOTHING, prepare for a lot more to come."
Stage 2:
Like clockwork, my friend advised me to smoke a joint in order to transition into the next phase which could come off as pretty powerful. That's when my mind felt numb and seriously fried. With my age and life experience, I trusted my friend and my decision of going thru with this trip, which we discussed and planned 3 months prior.
State of Mind Going into the Trip:
Before going further into the details of my trip, I think I should share with you my personal state of mind going into the trip:
I was excited, but have always suffered from some mild depression and have always had a morbid fear/fascination with the concept of death. I will tell you all that dying is my only fear. I don't fear public speaking or making an embarrassment of myself, or of spiders, but death...I've always had a huge fear of that, which is probably where I am most vulnerable. I'm also a humorous person and have a vivid imagination in general.
The night prior to this trip, I had been surfing on youtube and watching videos of 9/11 and footage at the time the world trade center was bombed. I also had watched disturbing videos of various gruesome executions.
With that weird component of my psyche, I ironically (along with my occasional depression) tend to be a very positive and optimistic person who has a deep appreciation for anything that is beautiful.
In terms of experience and drug useage: I don't smoke cigs; seldom use drugs except for alcohol or coffee.
Stage 3:
At about the time, my mind was becoming numb, I experienced nausea which is a feeling that dampened my high and at this stage, I found myself a bit uncomfortable as I sensed that I was losing control of my trip and that everything around me was becoming unbearable. I was feeling overstimulated by my senses and became rather incoherent. First, nature and the trees were so beautiful that it became sad to me. Occasionally, I'd sense that things would consider being dark and ugly but then I noticed that my mind could snap out of that and could refocus on what was around me to the beauty of all of nature's beauty and colors. I did sense a sort ability to control my hallucination at this point.
Stage 4:
As things were becoming overwhelming to me, I realized that I could not play my guitar or do much. I'd concluded that I was in heaven and that life as I knew it seemed fearfully sooooo far away from me. It appeared that nature itself, the trees and plant life around me was systematically becoming more perfect with each moment.
At about this point in time, I even concluded that I was being introduced to the very concept of heaven and life itself as being nothing more than a constant repetition of refinement. How life would simply gets prettier and prettier until all of life's flaws were corrected. I felt at this stage that I was getting the trip when I fell into the dilemma chasm of.....
Stage 5:
It was at this stage that I suddenly and fearfully realized that the optimism of how life and heaven was nothing more than a progressive expanding and refinement of life until perfection was attained was in fact NOT POSSIBLE. It was at this stage that I suddenly realized that I was everything in life. For in every perfection born, there is an imperfection born as well. For every beautiful moment and there is a counterpart ugliness (like those ugly executions and 9/11 videos I saw the night before), which for me led me to the nightmarish conclusion that to achieve "heaven" I would have to undergo all permutations of good and evil over and over again for the rest of eternity. This very monotony of good and evil puzzled me and made me aware that my optimistic discovery in stage 4 was meaningless. I discovered that I was in a state of denial. At this point, I was extremely taxed, lost, mad, and felt as if I was going to die.
I suddenly became scared out of my mind and was probably crying over this because I suddenly realized that I was staring my very fear in the eye. My friend, who was balls deep in his own trip was talking to me. He was much more experienced and knew what I was going thru.
In my eyes, I realized that his purpose in my life and the very purpose of this trip that we'd planned for 3 months in advance was nothing more than the very planning of my death. For my friend was nothing more than the very Grim Reaper here to spiritually guide me into the end of my life from me and was patiently awaiting me to accept my demise; allowing me to realize that all those I'd left behind, my family, friends, work, and loves of life were nothing more than material things to hide from the very fear that stares at me everyday like the beautiful trees around me: that I was to die and be at one with nature.
I was at the base of the death of my self. It was an ego crushing experience that found me feeling broken, lost, and extremely afraid and sad. In my entire life, I do not feel that I have ever felt so demoralized and vulnerable.
Returning from the Trip
The final hour and a half as I came down was a gradual return to the reality of my surroundings. Up and away from reality and then down back to reality. Up into a state of utter confusion and then back to hints of recognizable realities around me. I recall my friend telling me that by 12:30pm, I'd be back to my normal self again. I recall that when we arrived at his apartment, it only looked about 45% of how I remembered it to actually look like. I recall being relieved, of all things to do something monotonous like take a piss, but I still had doubts that I was returning to the safety of my reality as his bathroom looked surreally different, like some dollhouse bathroom that I'd never seen before even though I'd used my friend's bathroom many times.
During this in and out stage, I was very confused and just wanted things to return back to normal. I was morphing in and out of reality it seemed. A bit like bobbing underwater and then bobbing back up above to the surface of reality.
Between 7:15am and 11:30am, I was completely lost. Gone. Between 11:30 and 12:30, I was gradually returning to normal. This hour seemed like days, if not years.
Never had time been so slow to me. As we ate breakfast at noon or so, I recall the waiter asked me how my day was, and I recall replying, "I went to hell and back and it's just noon."
As I had a shot of vodka and then a beer as I ate breakfast, I recall feeling content and valued the monotony around me that I always thought I hated. For when I was stuck and lost in the deepest moment of my trip, I recall wishing that I could experience "normal boring things" again.
Moral of the Story:
7 grams of shrooms on the first go is an intense first dose. My friend told me that he was worried for me because he didn't think I'd gulp up that much so quickly. I guess he thought I was a poser. Actually, I was a poser as I naively ate those 7 grams of shrooms like popcorn. I simply didn't know better.
My friend felt guilty and I assured him that "it was my decision to go all-in uninformed." He probably assumed that I would have researched what a proper dose is on the first go. I trusted my friend and have no regrets. I will say that my trip scared the fuck out of me. But I realized that it scared me because I was staring in the eyes at my very greatest fear: I confronted my very fear of death itself.
The side affects, 3 months later, have been a certain feeling of humiliation for some reason and a melancholy amplified. Looking back, I do not think I would have changed anything. I have no regrets. If I were to chose a "national anthem" to describe the journey I was on, it would have to be "Can't Find My Way Home" as sung by The Swans (Originally written by Blind Faith). The song deeply reminds me of how vulnerable and scared I felt yet completely defenseless to what I experienced. Ethereally, the song now symbolizes how I found myself when I went on that shroom journey. Being a "home boy" returning home meant more to me that I could've ever imagined.
I developed a greater appreciation of a greater home: life itself.
You could also say that my trip was nothing more than a variation of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life."
And I was James Stewart.
Edited by gummaumma (09/27/13 12:57 AM)
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