So, this is multi-trip.
My last grow had a bit of trouble with contam, and ultimately I had to harvest early. Mostly half-grown, pin-like mushrooms... so the potency is a bit uncertain eh? hehehe. Well, I got 101g wet which became 13g dry. They were under the dehydrator for a full-blown 24 hours, so I'm pretty certain they were completely dried out. But, my BRF cakes were 93% water, and these were only 87% water.
Anyway, point being these were probably more potent than I'd anticipated.
-------------- Trip 1 - Challenging -------------
This was last weekend. I took 2.5g of pins, ground them up, lemon+greekyogurt+honey. Took 20 minutes to hit, and it hit hard. With a lot of body discomfort. Long story short, it was 5 rough hours of discomfort. Bad nausea from the acid bomb lemon yogurt kept me from getting comfortable, and I didn't realize it. Honestly, I was feeling very similar to my first bad trip, and upset with myself for taking so much again (I wrote a note to myself on my phone -- "take less next time", LOL).
Thankfully, my prior experience panic attack really was enough for me to keep it under control. I kept trying to do different things to pass the time -- put on music. Ugh, can't get into it, stomach pains. Walk around a bit. Restless. Still uncomfortable. Feeling frustrated that I was "here" again, like a ghost walking the halls of my own house. Like I'd been there a thousand lifetimes before, repeating the same thing through eternity.
Every time I got through a low point of bad thoughts and discomfort, I felt a wave of relief. That I had survived the worst! There was more to come, sure, but my resolve was growing with each victory.
In the end, I felt mentally strong. Of course there was a good amount of sobbing and overwhelming emotion at the end. I was watching Animals on Netflix. I felt like I knew the terror and fear of the bear cub, not knowing what it was supposed to do or why it was there, and they only had their mother to look at pleadingly for guidance. I felt the pain of a mother, not knowing exactly how to soothe their child or to reassure them that the terror will pass. I felt the "suffering" of existence -- how we come into the world, we sense and feel strange things and try to explain them to ourselves, and things are not always "good" feelings, and we don't have answers... so we question our parents. Or, we cry at them, and we don't know why And they do their best to find ways to soothe. Such is life.
---------------- Trip 2 - Breakthroughs ----------------
So, I started the morning off at 7:30. Started the coffee pot and measured out a 1.75g dose (lower, as I instructed myself last time), which then went in to a few squirts of lemon juice mixed up with a couple of spoonfuls of greek yogurt, with honey to cut the acid. Gross, right? Ok, so by 8AM I've finished my coffee and other... morning routine... and then I choked down the few spoonfuls of sour sweet yogurt (healthy gulps of cold water assist the process).
I take my dog for her morning walk and get back by 8:20, with the effects already kicking in. Coming up was rough. I tried to settle into the couch, into blankets. Sometimes, I found a comfort for some seconds, but usually my stomach would complain. Then, an ache in my side reminds me that I can't lay in this exact position or face penalty of agony later in the day. So, I squirm a bit, I try a few things. At this time I hadn't yet come to the realization that all of this body discomfort was leading directly to unpleasant trip effects, but I was beginning to piece it together. After a few cycles of aches, I decided that taking a warm shower would help soothe and pass the time while my stomach settled. I also took a couple of anti-acid Tums. The next hour or so was unpleasant but mostly uneventful otherwise -- I have become more accustomed to "troubling" feelings in a trip, and seem to be able to "pause" my spiraling patterns, giving me a chance to try a reset.
Finally, at about 10AM, I have no more stomach discomfort, and I find myself sliding into calm moments where I can enjoy the soundtrack I had on. Still, at intervals which felt far too frequent, I had the urge to pee. Each time, I fought to stay still longer, but the urge ate away at the calmness. So, each time I got up, and then had to find the comfortable spot again. After probably 3 or 4 iterations, I was able to slip back into my calmer state.
The first moment that sticks out to me, was 3 minutes and 10 seconds into this song , when the vocals came in. It felt beautiful, I felt love, appreciation.
I struggled to remain in the moment, however. I couldn't stop thinking "I have to write this down", or describe it somehow. At this point I pulled out my phone and used it to jot down notes (much of this is drawn from those). It worked surprisingly well! I recognized my behavior - I wanted to bottle this feeling and save it for later, and I was desperately grasping for ways to do that with words, as if they could transform into a spell for creating more beautiful moments.
So, between bursts of writing - I made a deal with myself. Or, I had a realization, or an idea to try. I still felt the beauty of the moment, the afterglow was still fresh. I thought -- ok, you can get into that moment again. And it will happen AGAIN, you are not going to lose it. That means you don't have to write it all down now! Try this - just experience 3 moments, and on the next one write some stuff down. 1 in 4, that is a fair ratio right? Just OBSERVE, don't record.
Then, something even more profound occurred. Something like... transcendence. I was looking towards the tree top outside the front window. I had been working on building an intentionality to simply "observe". Somehow, I found myself in a moment. A timeless moment. The tree began to glow brighter in the sun. I no longer felt where my skin met air. There was no edge to my vision, the horizons just seemed to keep expanding in an impossible way. The tree's aura was swaying and playing in the light breeze, there was an essence of mist or pollen in the glow, and it swirled.
Moments pass, though. The dog stirred, and my trance was interrupted. But the feeling stuck with me.
Somehow, I knew that I could get back there again. I no longer had a distinct fear that I would never be able to recapture a beautiful moment. Inexplicably, I had a sense that this moment is always here, it is always transcendent, it is always happening. We just do not really know how to observe it with any regularly. I wonder, is it meant to be something we only get glimpses of? Is reaching that moment a skill of mine to grow, as a tool to use, to ground myself, to reassure, to survive the turbulence of life?
I basked in this state of ebb (calm tranquility) and flow (personal realizations and the erosion of bad patterns).
I realize that "why" is a dangerous question for me to ask. To ask why is to try and solve a puzzle. We spend our lives attempting to solve one puzzle after another. All of the humans that we have known, all of our words and ideas and work, has never gotten us to a place where "why" doesn't reveal another layer of "why" questions. It reminded me of being a young child, the classic scenario of a kid just asking "why" to every answer of a parent, until they get fed up and stop answering. Why do we exist? Why do we think that any answer to that question would not beget more questions, ad nausea?
So, to ask "why" during a trip for me is to invite that spiral. A spiral that starts ok but rapidly hits a wall of unknown, which often warps into a terrifying tailspin that can end up in a full blown panic attack
That doesn't really seem useful, does it? So, instead, I am learning that it is ok to stop asking why for a moment. Or to not know the answer, because there is no answer. There is NO answer to that question that would satisfy, not one that I can imagine. Instead, simply observe. It doesn't matter "why" it is. It simply is. I had a deep sense that this is what I wanted to do more of -- I want to OBSERVE! I just want to do nothing and watch! Enjoy the show! To be still, and calm. To step behind the waterfall of thoughts and currents of life, and appreciate that they still go on without my active obsession and anxiety. To let go of the illusion that worrying about everything is a method to quell unease. To that point -- I no longer worried so much about my nausea. My body was already taking action to address it. My ego did not have an influence, but it is liable to act like a 24-7 news network "CRISIS: GUT PAIN, WILL THIS EVER END? STAY TUNED, AFTER THE BREAK WE WILL DISCUSS THE WAYS IN WHICH WE MIGHT HAVE RUINED OUR HEALTH FOREVER." So, with my ego redirected away from worry, I was able to observe. I was able to transcend for a bit.
### What next?
I feel like I know how to get back to that state, and I have work to do! With practice, maybe I could get there even without a substance to guide me. In any case, I am incredibly excited to face tomorrow, next week, next trip, next year.
I need to work on my ingestion method. Based on the last few trips, it's getting pretty clear that body discomfort gets in the way of reaching meditative, calm, and relaxing states. Probably going to start by making chocolates. That and not eating a bunch of junk late in the previous night!
Edited by rcraft (04/23/22 06:28 PM)
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