mine was with mushrooms and i'm somewhat referring to everyone elses first experience with them...
my first trip came at a way overdue time. in 01-02, i became really depressed over issues with a girl, then leading to crisis of faith - i used to be really religious and somewhat learned from her or from myself as i grew, that organized religion was bullshit. so my existence here on earth altered completely and i had to find new reasoning for staying alive. i had believed my whole life that jesus was real and i was a christian, i believed everything happened for a reason and that this life is only temporary and i knew where i was going when i died. with religion, i knew where i stood, my character was strong because i felt i had all the answers to life. but it was short lived, and once i began hanging with different crowds and experiencing new things, i realized the fallacy i'd been living. so i had to begin from step 1 - finding a new identity.
i dropped out of highschool in 02, it all seemed pointless and i began having strong anxiety because i was changing so much. i would go into school and feel blank, i had nothing to say to people i knew my whole life because what they expected from me was my old self. everything i had known was fake and so were the people i used to know. the girl i was infatuated with i knew would not hang around, i lost focus on any content in schoolwork, it all seemed pointless. i began skipping out 3-4 days a week, or just half days - i'd drive to school but just sit in the parking lot and then drive back home.
i began reading on erowid. i educated myself with drugs, it was a completely different world and one that seemed so alluring. i began reading here on the shroomery, but only the trip reports. i would read them for hours and hours, like a book, each persons testimonial being like my own. i would feel as though i was actually experiencing what they felt. i lost myself in it, i read them constantly for several months.
finally i grew out a few cakes and dosed with what i had grown. i didn't plan the day in advance when i'd take them, i was depressed and looking for anything really. the day i did them, it was probably the lowest i had been in weeks, just complete worthlessness and uncertainty. i kept them fresh after grown, and carried them with me deep into the woods beside my house.
the woods are just deep enough that you cannot see anything outside of them, but there is something on every side of them, and you can here construction and cars. i sat on a fallen tree and felt completely waited down from the depression, worrying about everything. i ate the mushrooms and sat for a long while, probably for about 40 minutes. i listened to music and felt completely discontent, i had such high expectations of the mushrooms and i was let down they were doing nothing. i didn't realize at the time what i was experiencing though - the come up, which is not usually pleasant.
i stood to walk up atop a higher place in the direct center of the woods. when i got up there, i looked out over the trees and had a wave of ecstasy and contentment i had never felt, ever. i stood motionless for several minutes and then began laughing uncontrollably. i started crawling on the ground, digging my fingers into the soil, like i had never felt the ground beneath me - as if i had only ever knew it there, but never actually examined it for what it was. i held my hands up close to my face and started examining my body and everything around me. my laughing turned into sobbing, and soon into a cheerful sobbing with laughter accompanying it. i had felt something real for the first time in months, and it had literally been beside me all along.
for the next 2-3 hours i sat motionless, never moving once, watching the sun descend through the trees, changing color as it moved downward until eventually it disappeared beyond my field of vision. i listened to the sounds surrounding me, those of the forest but also construction and people shouting occasionally. those sounds felt unnatural and alien, like the mushroom was telling me that it was not proper, that these sounds ARE alien to our world and western culture is out of place and this was the reason why everyone seems so unhappy and discontent. i began to understand nature and felt a unity with it i'd never felt before. i longed to get away from everything, i imagined a river with a forest surrounding, i wanted to believe that one day i would leave all of this and find something like that. no hard facts from society, no finances, no gossip or socialization.
i knew my life would be completely different after that day. i had found something, something which seemed the perfect teacher, something to show me that I was actually alive. nothing ever felt tangible for me, this world had always just been a stage and i was just another character trying not to get too consumed in it. i had been taught to not fall for this world, that it would pass and it was only temporary. but with the mushrooms i realized that was senseless - we are here, this can be tangible and beautiful if we allow it to be.
that trip didn't cure me, but it gave me a new realization for living - one that i could carry with me and grow apon, and i have for five years now.
i believe mushrooms teach us the proper way to live. i believe it is nature's remedy for living, and you may not begin living until you've undertaken it and it has shown you its views.
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Edited by badlydrawnboy (03/16/06 06:39 AM)
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