Last night a friend of mine from high school/my hometown came to visit from his school a few hours away. We hadn't gotten together in months, Thanksgiving was the last time we saw each other, and even then it was a very brief occasion. I've known this person for a few years really, not long in the scheme of my life, but I consider him a very close friend having gotten to know him fairly well in the amount of time we've been friends.
We've both had time now that we've been in college and away from our parents/home to realize a lot of things about ourselves and the world we are living in. We've discovered entire subcultures apart from one another and have settled into them, but we've kept in touch through a few brief phone calls and some intermitten instant messaging. We arranged our visit sort of on a whim, but it worked out that he could come. As luck would have it, my roommates all went back to their hometown to celebrate Easter, so we had the entire apartment living space at our disposal. I had been holding a fairly modest amount of mostly dried cubensis mushrooms and I thought it adequate to dose both of us at least somewhat, so I suggested it.. and Mickey, my friend, was very enthused about the idea.
I thought that I had a fairly good idea of what it is to "trip" until last night, and I think Mickey did as well. Our experiences with it weren't extensive, but we both had our moments when we thought it couldn't get any crazier. On the few occasions when we were able to communicate while tripping in different areas, and usually never simultaneously, it was difficult at best to understand what was going on. Last night was very similar in that an enormous amount of confusion seemed to permeate both of us and everything else, but at the same time, it was as though we were totally aware of what was happening. It seemed like something mystical, as though we had been asleep all this time while "sober" and then suddenly - after eating these mushrooms - our eyes were pried wide open. It was to us as though reality had been revealed, and our petty and insignificant problems were trivial in the scheme of our lives.
I feel as though tripping with Mickey was a way of bonding for life, tempering our already solid friendship. In the period of time between 10 PM and 5 AM we left my apartment once, only to return minutes later. It was quite funny, really. We had no plan, nothing to drive us other than a need for something to do. This perplexed us perhaps the most of anything. Why did we have to find something to do, when all we were doing by "doing" something was simply existing, and doing exactly what we "do" when we're TRYING to find "something to do". I probably sound like a bantering lunatic, but this is something that is greater than my capacity for verbosity. I can't capture the concept with consonants and vowels.
Since my first couple of trips, I've considered the use of mushrooms (the only true psychedelic I've had the opportunity to experiment with) to be something upon which I try to tread lightly. I know the power they contain, or the potential for disaster. I found out that a local guy who ate some shrooms from the very same batch as me ended up tripping out and flipping his car. He was so out of it that he played with pieces of broken glass while still in the wrecked vehicle. Apparently, he then wandered around a field until he found someone's house, where he knocked on the door and tried to talk to the residents. They called the police, and he was arrested for posession of marijuana.. and he couldn't tell the police anything coherent, just things about "being with the earth" and whatnot. I can completely see how it happened.. but I couldn't imagine that sort of terror as being anything other than negative for mental health. I feel very fortunate that my trip took me nowhere, and yet I felt as though I went everywhere. With a really good friend, at that. My life seems different somehow, like maybe I did a massive evaluation of the big picture. I caught a glimpse of where I fit into the puzzle, but only a glimpse that is meant to give me some idea as to where I want to be. I must figure out how to get there myself, and this seemed to give me a bit of nudging in the right direction.
I can say that I have a lot of love for how things are, and respect for the order which has established itself. I find it sad that I am part of a vast minority.. I am not entirely sure where I'm going with this all but I wasn't sure of much at all last night, so it seems fitting, in a way.
Since the shrooms weren't totally dry - and in fact, some had just been harvested by our friend of a friend, we had no way of knowing the true weight or dosage in terms of weight. I'm guessing we both ate around an 8th a piece, based on how hard we tripped.. but I could be wrong, in either direction. Could have been more or less, I genuinely do not know. Trip duration: approximately 6 hours.
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