DOSE:		smoked	Cannabis
		oral	Vitamins / Supplements	(liquid)
	2.7 g	oral	Mushrooms - P. cubensis

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

I had been holding onto a small amount of cubies for 6 months, waiting for the right time to try them. I'd never tried them before. I was nervous and waiting for one of my more experienced friends to come around and be ready to take them with me. It was the end of the semester and we had all just finished our finals. I was driving alone one afternoon and received a text asking if I wanted to do them that night. I was slightly hesitant, but still said yes.

That night, I arrived at my friend's apartment where 4 of my friends were, who were all experienced. I was the only newcomer. We all sat around and smoked a bowl first. This may have been a bad idea since herb makes me uncomfortable and antisocial. At this time, 3 of my friends left to pick up another friend, who was also experienced.

I was alone with one friend, T, when I started having a mini freakout about the upcoming experience, courtesy of my unpredictable friend/foe MJ. My perceived levity of the upcoming experienced started to grow and I was feeling hopeless and confined in a box, thinking, 'I might not be able to do this tonight.' I told T of my worries. She gave me an Emergen-C packet. It was fruit punch flavored and I drank it with cold water. In 15 minutes when the rest of the crew got back I was feeling 100% energized and ready to consume the cubies.

We sat in a circle and I contributed what I had. In total the group had 16g which we split in six. So I consumed 2.7 g on my own.

Initially, we tried to watch the movie Kung Pao, which originally seemed like a good idea, but we quickly realized that most of us couldn't get into it. The minute we turned it off I realized I was feeling lighter and happier than usual. We were all laying down on the floor, propped up on our elbows, hanging out. I felt so light at one point that I felt like instead of laying down, propped up on my elbows, I was standing up, leaning against a wall on my elbows. It was amazing. I asked my friend, J, 'Hey dude, are we laying down right now? Or are we standing and leaning against a wall?' He replied 'we're laying down man.' 'Are you sure dude?' I asked. 'Yeah dude!' This hilarious conversation continued for a minute or so and really lightened the mood.

I sat up and started touching items in my immediate environment. They felt amazing! I couldn't believe how amazing textures felt. I started touching, squeezing, and rubbing my hands on anything I could find. Then a bit of hesitation crept in. What if these textures didn't want to be touched? Was I violating their personal space?! I inquired to the group, 'Wait guys! Is it ok if I do this? Touch all these textures. Like is it cool? Are the textures... the textures are our friends?' This inquiry made everyone burst out in laughter as they reassured me that the textures were indeed, our friends.

At some point we went from a close together group to a more dispersed group in the living room. I was on the couch with another person or two and everyone else was in other places in the room. I was looking at my hands in awe and I felt ridiculously relaxed. More relaxed than I'd felt in my entire life. The entire time I was just sweating but it felt really good. Like my head was an ancient statue in central America with a fountain on the top that was letting a slow and steady stream of cleansing warm water run down every crevice of the statue face. I enjoyed this amazing sensation while staring childishly at my hands when I noticed my friend J was crying. When the rest of the group inquired as to why he was crying, he simply replied, 'it's so beautiful.' He was referring to the atmosphere and the collective experience we were all having. We all had a group hug.

I was on the couch again and I think my consciousness had become delocalized because I felt like the 6 of use were 'all on the same wave.' I expressed this incoherently and no one really noticed but I didn't care, we WERE all on the same wave. I sat there in that connected state of bliss for god knows how long, but it felt like a very short period of time.

I began interacting again. I tried to speak to my friends but I couldn't speak in complete sentences. In order to speak a sentence, one has to be able to know where one is in the sentence, what word came before, what word comes now, and what is the idea behind the sentence. But my temporal window of awareness was too narrow for that. I was only aware of plus or minus half a second or less, which meant I couldn't complete a sentence because by the third word, the first word of the sentence would have already been wiped from memory. Therefore, my entire articulation of the entire experience was limited to, 'It's just like... you know?' Fortunately, when I said that, all my friends understood what I was trying to say and cheered me on. This mutual understanding was probably due to us all being on the same wave.

This phenomenon of my temporal window being reduced to plus/minus 0.5 seconds to the point where I couldn't speak English or accomplish any task that required more than half a second of attention, I refer to as being 'trapped in the present'. Despite the implications of the term 'trapped', it was quite liberating. It felt amazing. It was impossible for me to worry about anything in my life because 'my life' was beyond the scope of my temporal window. I was only capable of worrying about things that happened in the past 0.5 seconds. Most of these events were good, but even if they were bad, they would pass in 0.5 seconds anyway. I was truly only able to use the previous half a second as a reference point for all future action and I was only able to plan half a second ahead into the future. So by all definitions, I truly was trapped in the present moment, it just happened to be very enjoyable due to my exceptional set and setting.

Later on in the future, god knows how long because time was passing so fast, I was talking to my friend T on the couch that I had yet to leave. I was having an entire conversation with her, but I had no idea what we were talking about. I was judging myself harshly. 'God I must sound like a fucking idiot. I must be speaking complete gibberish. Is she going to tolerate my nonsense this long? What a kind soul.' Despite my assumptions at the time, I now think I may have actually been carrying out a coherent conversation entirely on autopilot because the way I remember her communicating was entirely normal looking, which is AMAZING. I now think that my consciousness was delocalized through the entire apartment and I was being everything, but the individual that is me was still able to operate normally, because I was completely unaware of what I was talking to her about. Even to this day, I have no idea. Eventually she left.

I was sitting on the couch and my friend A gave me an origami flower that she made. It was amazing. Unfortunately a few minutes later I thought it looked delicious so I first tried to eat it and then tore it up so I could make tea out of it, but I got distracted by something else and ended up leaving it on the floor in pieces. She later found it but when I explained what had happened she just laughed her ass off.

A few other things happened that night. I hugged my friend R, and he and my friend T gave me a frozen grape to eat, which they said would be amazing in my current state. They were right. It can't be explained in words.

The whole experience lasted 4.5-5 hours. Everyone else tripped a bit longer than I did. I have a pretty fast metabolism so everything always hits me faster and goes away faster than for everyone else. My five hour experience felt like an hour or an hour and a half tops. This was strange because I was expecting time DILATION, not contraction. I thought it would feel like forever but it felt like the blink of an eye. I have a suspicion that the bulk of the time was spent in that weird bliss state on the couch being everything in the room. I really don't know what happened the entire time I was tripping. Everything I remember seems to encapsulate way less than 5 hours.

As we came down we listened to the Beatles. I had never had a great appreciation for the Beatles until that day. They sounded amazing! It was an excellent way to conclude my trip. Every beautiful song made me feel like life was wonderful and perfect.

I had the best sleep of my life that night even though I slept on the floor (with a pillow). I woke up and the next day was also great. Mushrooms really made me appreciate and enjoy day to day life way more. I realized how amazing the present moment was by being trapped in it, physically incapable of thinking about/worrying about anything outside of my 0.5 second window. I think if the set and setting weren't as good as they were this could have been a bad thing. Also, if I hadn't been willing to let go and forget about who I was and the story of my life, being trapped in the present could have been an unpleasant experience. But I was able to gradually detach, pieces of me being carried away with every bead of sweat that I offered to the universe.

One final note. I did not experience the visual hallucinations and distortions that are common with mushrooms. I'm unsure as to why this is the case. I'm not complaining though because it was still an incredible experience.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 106121
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: May 17, 2017	Views: 4,740
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : Glowing Experiences (4), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)