BIO:
Male, 26
DOSE:
3.5g Psilocybe Cubensis B+, home grown
SETTING:
My apartment bedroom, Los Angeles
DATE:
8/29/26
I'm writing this so that I can remember. So I can be accountable for myself and concretize the experience - it happened.
I'm posting it here to share notes with the explorer's club
I'm semi-experienced with psychedelics - I've tripped around 8 times since 2019 (my freshman year of college). My first two trips were powerful LSD experiences. The trips since then have been smaller doses of mushrooms. But I haven't tripped within the last year, so I tried to frame this experience as a re-introduction to the mushrooms. I've been anticipating this for a while and have been listening to a lot of Terence McKenna and Ram Dass lectures, meditating, studying, waiting for the time to feel right - when I would be as free from fear and as comfortable as possible.
INTENTIONS:
- To explore
- See a more profound viewpoint of reality
- To receive guidance about how to navigate life and live with an open heart (how to be peaceful and loving)
- A fresh slate
- Forgiveness / compassion for myself
- Fall in love with life
- Questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my potential / purpose? What is reality?
PREPARATION QUOTES:
"In the province of the mind what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experientially and experimentally. When the limits are determined, it is found that they are further beliefs to be transcended. *In the province of the mind, there are no limits*" - John Lilly
"Whereof one as yet cannot speak, thereof one can be silent. We must bear in mind that which we need to know and discover how to speak of that which was inexpressible. [In 1700 AD radio waves were silent and undetectable.]" - John Lilly
REPORT
Saturday 8/29/26, at 2:30pm I weighed out 3.5g of mushrooms that I harvested about a year ago, put them in a bowl, and knelt down in front of them. I put my hands in the prayer position and whispered a short prayer to the mushroom spirit, something along the lines of: "Please be gentle. I come to you humbly, open to go with the flow and accept whatever comes." I also recited two prayers which have been hitting especially powerfully and profoundly recently: the Guru Stotram and Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
Section of Guru Stotram: "Salutations to the Guru who revealed to me the Supreme Truth which is unfragmented, infinite, timeless Divinity, and which pervades the entire universe. Guru is the creator, sustainer, and destroyer. Guru is directly the supreme spirit - both manifest reality and the Absolute. My reverential salutations to the glorious Guru who resides in the heart of all beings as the true self"
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu: "May all beings everywhere (including myself) be happy, be peaceful, and be free from suffering. May all of my thoughts, all of my words, and all of my actions in some way contribute to that happiness, peacefulness, and freedom from suffering for all beings (including myself)."
After the prayers, I crushed up the mushrooms and mixed in a good amount of apple sauce. It helps cover up the taste and I can just swallow spoonfuls and not have to chew it. While eating, I watched the video Ram Dass, East Forest - Sit Around The Fire
After eating, I took a shower and put on a clean white shirt, headphones, and started the East Forest album Music for Mushrooms. I was paging through a beautiful large Van Gogh art book when it started coming on. The beauty of the colors, the atmosphere he created, the suffering he went through which ended in suicide. It was all seeping through the paintings. My breathing started to deepen as experience intensified.
Time began to slow. I know this is a common effect of psychedelics (and a desired effect, to immerse into the present moment) but when it really starts to happen and gets weird and time really slows down is kind of scary. Of course the classic thought "If time slows down totally, will I get sucked into eternity which I can't escape? Like will I be stuck there forever?" Even though I know that this is a safe drug that only lasts 4-6 hours - metabolically it is impossible for me to stay in this state forever. But eternity and infinity can be a really mind boggler!
In the Van Gogh book, I came to the painting Café Terrace at Night which hung in my childhood home growing up. I now live thousands of miles from my family and miss them a lot, waves of emotion washed over me as the tears started to flow. It was a mix of emotions, and also an appreciation of how lucky I am to be touched by beauty or sadness and to cry at all. I'm a very emotional person when I'm sober too, so mushrooms really get me emotional!
At this point, I thought it would be a good idea to put the book down, lay in bed, and put the mind-fold on. I didn't experience vivid closed eyed hallucinations yet, it was mostly emotional and mental. It became apparent that I'm not good at maintaining relationships, or asking people to hang out, it's difficult for me to be social. I could feel friends and loved ones drifting away. Why do this to myself? Because I am afraid.
FEAR. Fear dominates my life.
What should I do with fear?
Let it go. I can let go of fear. How to let it go? Just breathe it out.
There's nothing to apologize for and nothing to be afraid of.
At this point I was crying too much for the mind-fold. I got up out of bed and sat in my closet in front of my altar / meditation area which has a small picture of Ram Dass and a large picture of the Indian saint Neem Karoli Baba. The photo of Neem Karoli Baba was alive and moving. Popping out of the canvas like 3-D. The wrinkles on his face were dancing, the patterns of his beard where crawling up his whole face. There were faces within faces. His eyes drooping and melting like Salvador Dali. The pattern of the white wall behind the photo was dancing and rotating and expanding in complexity. At some moments, looking into his eyes it felt like I was looking into the eye of a dolphin or a whale. And sometimes didn't look like a face at all, then it would suddenly snap back to being a face. He would cycle through emotions, his face changing like putty. Sometimes the look was "Why do you keep doing this?" (As in, why do I keep clinging to destructive / negative thought patterns), and a moment later he was laughing and chiding in a grandfather-ly loving way.
There was a feeling that this lifetime is the book that my soul is reading in the library of eternity. I really like this metaphor, and it can be on several levels: do I want to be the character in the book, the reader of the book, or the author of the book? To view my life as a story, or movie, or dance, play, or a game is much more fun than taking it to be 100% serious all the time.
A few other insights I felt:
- No failure: only learning and living
- All of life is grace
- Humility = Strength
- It doesn't matter if you're good at something - it only matters that you DO IT (creativity is important)
- Empty the cup before it can be filled
- Context can change things - it can make a sad tune a happy one
Two quotes came to mind:
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they can only be felt in the heart" - Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher
"Your coming and going are nowhere but where you are" - Hakuin the Zen Poet
--
Once I started coming down, around 7:00, my body started to hurt and I got a headache. I was sore and just didn't feel right. I think the mushrooms were just revealing what's already there. I was shown where my work is:
Strengthen my body (diet, exercise, Yoga Asanas)
Quiet my mind (meditation)
I better get comfortable in my own skin, because it's the only one I've got
I ate some spaghetti and felt better. I watched the Ram Dass documentaries Becoming Nobody and Fierce Grace - it's sort of a tradition for me to watch these after a trip, they're very comforting for me.
I feel like I got a lot to work with - a lot of giving up and letting go to do. I'm excited for my next trip, I don't know when it will be yet but I think I want to take a larger dose. Terence McKenna's descriptions of the visions and the Logos really interests / attracts me.
If anyone has any advice about working with psychedelics for personal / spiritual growth / development please let me know
--------------------
In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experimentally and experientially.
When so found, these limits turn out to be further beliefs to be transcended.
In the province of the mind there are no limits.
- John Lilly
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Valmiki 
Edit 
Reply 
1 2 all )
chineseguy
wecontrolsweetfreedom
milk
KombuchaMushPeep
