Hey all, long time lurker and first time poster here. I love reading trip reports on Shroomery and Erowid for a lot of reasons, and generally the effect psychedelics have on the human psyche is fantastically intriguing. So my friends and I dropped two tabs each last night and had a crazy ass time. I'll try to be as concise yet simultaneously descriptive as possible, but this is my first trip report so bear with me here. I've had a great deal of experience with cannabis, and a considerable amount of experience with other things like Adderal, E, and a few RCs, but this was my first full-blown legitimate psychedelic.
We dropped at around 10:30 PM, and were just chilling, sitting around smoking a few bowls and joking around listening to tunes while we waited for it to kick in. It took approximately 20 minutes to dissolve entirely, and even though the tabs had rested under our tongues the whole time, we all agreed it made our whole tongue feel tingly and numb. Very cool. The come-up took about 30 or 40 minutes to be noticeable. I felt almost entirely normal -- as normal as I feel when stoned, anyway -- just a little bit... off. Something was different for sure, but I really couldn't put my finger on it. At this point we were just talking, but soon (over the course of an additional 20 minutes or so) the effects became much more profound. I reached for some tea when I noticed my vision was distorting quite significantly. When I say "distorting," I mean my vision was going in and out of focus pretty rapidly. It would fluctuate from out of focus and very blurry to in focus and very crisp in a matter of seconds. Not something I expected, but our base mentality of the night was something to the respect of "Whatever happens, happens." Shortly after my visual episode, my friend "Nick" vocalized that he was most definitely feeling it. At this point we were all just talking out what we were experiencing, and the mood was still very chill and light-hearted. Lots of giggling and lots of "Duuuude... what the fuck, hahahaha" type of things.
I very clearly remember when I was positive I had begun tripping. It was dark in my van(very spacious, though) and as I held my lighter up to finish off our last bowl, my friend's sparsely illuminated jacket caught my eye. I held the lighter closer and sure enough the plaid design was changing not only colors, but the entire design was shifting around and morphing into new patterns. We all gawked at this, being our first ever time having a full-blown hallucination of something very real laying right in front of our very real eyes. This, naturally, was the funniest fucking thing ever. We must have laughed at that damn jacket for a solid five minutes. I'd like to note that after this incident, Nick started to really dive into his trip and the mood shifted quite significantly. We were all past the point of no return, and the trip had taken control. The most important thing that seems to stick out in my mind about the next hour to hour-and-a-half is the presence of my body. I have truly never felt my body like I did last night. It was like smoking the heaviest, most potent indica for hours, and then popping some E to boot. I felt like my energy was finally flowing correctly -- it was phenomenal. Being the person I am, the music was a pivotal aspect of the trip for me. Luckily I had thought a bit ahead, and decided then to play Pink Floyd's quintessential trippy album; Dark Side Of The Moon. This was probably the best decision I had made in a long time -- it completely transformed our wacky visual dabbling into a full-blown tripfest. I turned the heat on the lowest setting to ensure comfort throughout the album, and we all relaxed for a bit to lose ourselves in the notes. For anyone who hasn't tripped to this album, or simply hasn't bothered listening at all, I highly recommend it. The phrase that immediately comes to mind is "emotional rollercoaster."
First, incredible relaxation and complacency. Very chill, everything was just alright. You couldn't have bothered me if you doused me with ice water. This was quickly followed by overall weirdness and slight anxiety just as On The Run starts in with the crazy sound effects. I knew this was coming so it didn't ruin anything, but I almost feel like it intensified the coming-up and really launched me into some new territory. For the sake of brevity we can just say the opening of Time startled the hell out of me -- again, even though I knew it was coming -- and the following dark, ambient music gave the whole thing a very intense feel. I remember looking around at Nick and "Gerald", just exchanging facial expressions that really seemed to speak more than words ever could. We knew it was coming, and we were ready. At this point it's about 11:45 and the ride is just beginning. Time moves into The Great Gig In The Sky as we awkwardly move into the front seats to look out the windows... ... ... This is where my trip becomes what I would consider a real trip. There were tons of colors to look at with my headlights illuminating all the trees and leaves in front of us, not to mention a handful of colorful plants. As I stared at them, they came alive and began swirling, dancing, morphing and twisting into each other, creating new shapes and colors I almost thought didn't exist. The plants and saprolings in front of us began literally dancing, shifting into humanoid shapes and intertwining with each other in a very swirly and graceful way. The trees were most definitely living. I could feel a life force emanating from them, powerful yet benevolent, completely content with just auditing everything happening around them. Silent onlookers. Stoic guardians of mankind and nature. I have absolutely no idea how long we stared at these formations, it could have been hours. I remember the trance being broken into the incontestable climax of my trip -- or any high I've ever had for that matter. If you skip to 14:30 and listen for a few moments as it fades into the vocals for Great Gig in the Sky, you will understand the awesome moving effect they had on me. I was so absorbed, so mesmerized, so awe-struck that a human being's voice could ever produce such a beautiful sound, I never wanted it to end. The vocals pick up into some sweeping highs, whirling you around in a splendor of passion and soul-piercing raw emotion before gently sliding you back down into these rich, soft, sweet lows that wrap you up like a blanket. Hands-down the most soothing thing I've ever heard.
This continued for some time before I drifted into what could be considered a mildly bad trip. I have some depression issues I had a hard time coping with some time ago, I used to take medication and all that jazz. The going was rough for a few years, but I truly believe I pulled myself through it and come out a better person and rid myself of the crutch I called meds. But severe clinical depression is a physiological imbalance of chemicals in your brain, and doesn't just go away. This is my theory for where this trip went.
The amazing and beautiful leaves we had been staring at started doing something very peculiar -- they would brighten momentarily, growing in size and color, beginning to swirl again, before they quickly shriveled and died. Almost instantly they shrank, shriveled, darkened and died. The plants became dull and lifeless, the vines very pronounced and menacing. This happened in rapid succession a countless amount of times: birth and death, growth and decay, over and over. Soon the plants began to stay shriveled and dead and the edges began melting into a strange dark maroon misty, foggy, haze. It melted off the edges of everything and slowly the tendrils of it began to drift farther away and start to evaporate. This happened for a considerable amount of time, in accompaniment with some disturbing audio hallucinations. My mind was creating awkward pauses of deafening silence that, according to Gerald, were not actually happening. The must was playing consistently, but I was hearing these strange breaks in the songs where an overbearing silence became the predominant aspect of my trip. I also seemed to be hearing what sounded like "hidden" vocals in the songs. Underneath the regular vocal track, my ears picked up a duplicate layer that was the exact same lyric set, but the voice... it was terribly sad and haunting, very surreal and spooky, yet filled with a horrible sadness I could barely fathom. These audio apparitions lasted only a few seconds, mind you, but repeated in conjunction with the strange visuals. My sense of linearity was fucked and time was essentially nonexistent, but I believe this to have only lasted 20 or 30 minutes tops.
My trip picked back up when our friend "Eric" arrived, and was pretty routine from there. As I came down, I slowly became very introspective and reflected a lot on my thoughts during the trip. I was quiet, and felt that sense of being off again... not out of it or tired... just weird. I'd say I was 100% sober again by around 8 AM, but I couldn't even begin to attempt sleeping until around noon.
Overall, this struck me as an immensely powerful experience -- one I will surely never forget. I believe I took a lot from it, and I'm really excited to drop again.
Sincerest apologies for the wall of text, but I feel writing things like this out helps organize my thoughts and orchestrate my emotions properly. I'd also like any feedback you have. Is the freaky, bad trip shit common? Any tips on staving off bad vibes like that? Do your trips commonly have elements like that? Also, is the vision fluctuation something to expect?
Thanks for reading and/or responding. Happy tripping!
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