My first experience with psychedelics was about a year and a half ago, but I have been inspired by others' reports to try to recount it as best I can. Sorry if it is a bit long-winded, but I have wanted to write this for some time and
Throughout my freshman year of college, I had undergone some changes in my life. After smoking weed very occasionally in high school (not owning my own piece), I had become a daily user of weed. This didn't effect my grades/ relationships negatively (I kept a 4.0 and landed an internship that summer). But this transition obliterated my preconceptions of drugs and psychedelics and I began researching on Erowid quite often with the intention of trying shrooms with my roommate (we will call him Eric) sometime down the road.
Near the end of the year, Eric (who is from Chicago- this will come into play later) found somebody to buy the shrooms from. We bought 3.5 grams each, and enlisted another friend (John) to try them with, as John had experienced shrooms once before.
Sometime in mid- June, I drove to campus to get the trip started, as Eric was living off campus for the summer. John met us there and we set out for a nice park in a nearby city which had a zen garden, pond, and plenty of other attractions that we thought would be cool while tripping. John kept trying to get us to go to a beach that was over 3 hours away, but Eric and I didn't want to go.
[0:00]
We get to the park, and immediately down 3.5 grams each. I was so excited to eat them that I felt placebo effects almost immediately. We set out into the forested area of the park away from other people to find the "God Oak" tree deep in the park.
[0:20]
We find the tree all alone in the middle of a clearing. We sit down as we are all feeling a little nauseous.As I stare into the tree, I start getting pretty intense visuals. The bark seems to be fragmented and each piece appears to be slightly shaking or vibrating. There appears to be tiny organisms crawling all up and down the oak, and the tree as well as the ground begin breathing. Now this is all very new to me, and I am so taken by the beauty of the life I am seeing that I shed a few tears. Then the nausea starts to come back so we head out of the woods to go explore.
[0:45]
We make our way to a pond where there are ducks and at this point Eric and I are start to peak pretty hard so we end up sitting on the edge of a small walkway/ bridge over a stream leading into the pond. Watching the ducks fly around and land in the pond and eat things out of the water, we were all pretty mesmerized. Eric started looking at psych. patterns on his phone, and I couldn't help but feel his time would be better spent looking at the pond, but didn't express that because hey, to each his own.
This whole time we must have looked absolutely fucked out of our minds because Eric is talking quite loudly and showing me pictures of patterns, and I am staring slackjawed at the ducks, all while sitting almost in the middle of a bridge in a busy area of the park. So we get up and walk to the other side of the pond.
[1:30]
This is where things get a little weird. I am sitting next to John on a bench (if I haven't mentioned him too much yet it is because he was giving off weird vibes the whole time if that makes sense). So he starts asking me all these weird questions about the devil and if I believe in hell and what I think that would be like, which is kind of freaking me out so I just kind of peace out.
I walk away and as i'm walking I see a very, very large woman in an electric scooter with no lower legs coming the other way toward me (like cut off at the knees). And not only are her legs amputated but the legs she does have are gigantic and swollen like watermelons and the skin at the amputation point looks tied together almost like the end of a sausage. No doubt I stared right at her with my saucer eyes as I walked past.Then I start feeling like an asshole so I grab my headphones and decide its time for a walk through the zen garden.
[2:00]
Walking through the garden solo was fucking wild. Crazy Chinese structures and white sand everywhere. This was very fun for me, but I wanted to get back to see my friends so I meet up with them under a tree in a large open field.
John is still being quite strange, but Eric and I are on the comedown and start talking about our trips and how our minds were racing too fast to process much. We both climb up in the tree and watch a nearby game of basketball, and discuss our philosophies regarding life. Coming from a Chicago suburb, Eric was raised very conservative, and I found it interesting that this trip shattered his previously held beliefs regarding racism, gay marriage, etc. It was quite a profound experience for him, which was awesome to hear given that those beliefs were the only source of conflict in our relationship.
[3:00]
We leave the park and go smoke weed at Eric's house. We grab some Chinese food and I head home to contemplate everything I experienced.
Overall this was a great first experience, in sharp contrast to my second experience with shrooms which was somewhat overwhelming and dark due to set and setting. These were my only 2 trips and I cherish them both.
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