DOSE:	3.8 g	oral	Mushrooms
		smoked	Cannabis
	2 hits	oral	1P-LSD	(blotter / tab)

BODY WEIGHT:

210 lb

I've been told by a friend that I should try and get this off my chest, so here we go. Also, some details are left out, and names are changed. Just in case, ya know?

A year before this incident, I tried my first psychedelic; 1.5g of mushrooms. The trip was incredibly intense for the dose and I vividly remember being so damn amused by every little change. It was love at first CEV. After this, I began smoking weed frequently, and would try both LSD and Mescaline before the year's end.

Two weeks before the anniversary of the Alpha Trip (as I had taken to calling it), I decided to celebrate the momentous day by going further than I ever had, and blasting straight to space. The weeks flew by and my preparations were going well. I had gotten ahold of a half-ounce of mushrooms from a friend that grew them locally, and had driven around a nearby city for far too long until I found some acid.

Three close friends and myself had requested 3 days off, and hunkered down with plenty of food, drink, and too many drugs. For me at least, even the chillest psychs can be really taxing on my mind. At any substantial dose it is very easy for my trip to turn bad, another lovely gift from my anxiety. I spent the day prior meditating, and trying to clear the nervous energy I could already feel. The rest of the day was spent cleaning and beautifying, anything to help with making the trip more comfortable.

At around 10:00, after giving everyone time to wake up, we decided to split the mushrooms first. The entire time weighing everyone's doses out I could feel the nervousness coming back. We ate the mushrooms, tried (and failed) to get the taste out of our mouths, and I began packing a bowl. The bowl got passed around, and before long it was ash and I felt my nerves start to relax.

Before I go much further, let me brief you on my fellow trippers. Matt, one of my closest friends, has what we've joked is aphantasia. Every time we've done L or mushies before, he's never gotten a single visual. At this time, he was engaged to Renee, one of the worst people I've had the displeasure of meeting. My favorite person ever, Luke, is my oldest friend. He trip-sat the Alpha Trip and is kind of the cool uncle to our friend group, despite being the youngest. Isaac, Matt's brother, was a psych virgin, and is the mediator of the group. I can't tell you how many times he's broken up stupid fights.

Continuing on, at around 10:45, I begin feeling what I think are the mushrooms. I knew I was in for a ride, as all previous trips took almost 2 hours to kick in. For some ungodly reason, Luke convinced me to finish off the dust from the bag. Around this time, Luke gets a phone call. It's work! Demanding he come in! So, crazy bastard that he is, he puts on his work clothes and goes in for a shift. Not 30 seconds after he leaves, Matt's fiance Renee gets home. First thing through the door she is ranting about some bullshit that doesn't make any sense to anyone but her. Matt quickly tells her that we've dosed, and that she needs to relax. He ends up convincing her to come to their bedroom and leave Isaac and I alone. So in an hour, this trip has gotten quite a lot more uncomfortable, but I can't back out now! To ease the transition, Isaac and I decided to take 2 tabs of acid.

Until about 12, I was on my laptop, playing music and browsing Reddit, laughing my ass off at the stupidest shit. Isaac is right there beside me, dying along with me. Shortly after 12, when our laughter has subsided and the trip was really coming on strong, Isaac decided to retreat to his room and read (to this day I don't get it). Now that I am beginning to trip pretty hard, I go around the room, turning off the bright lights, leaving only a light pink mood light on. I sat back down on the couch, and the lighting from my laptop screen was like smoke, just pouring off the edges of the light.

From this point on, the trip began getting so intense I was losing track of both time and conscious thought . It took everything I had to steady my shaking hands and focus my eyes, and I eventually managed to get in a pair of earbuds and play some music. Stereotypically, I started with Pink Floyd, and progressed to Kiev and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The whole time, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. There was a beautiful endless field of these pulsing pyramids, each one green, blue, and purple, all moving to the rhythm of the music. When I changed the music to RHCP (The Getaway), the pyramids became these dancing figures. They were female, and they sang along! The more I got my whole body grooving to the music, the happier they were and the prettier the colors.

Suddenly I was vomiting. A lot. I'm not a very quiet person when throwing up either, it sounds like I'm dying. Matt came out of his room, saying he was pulled out of his rabbit hole by the sounds of death. When he saw the mess, he carefully pulled me to my feet and guided me to the bathroom, where he told me to get in the shower. I somehow managed to get my clothes off and climb in. The water was cold, and I could feel each and every drop leeching life out of my very being. Every drop was a small malevolent universe, and each one that hit me was destroyed, taking my essence with it. I was wrought with fear, regret, and guilt.

At some point, probably a minute later (felt like an hour), I managed to climb out of the shower. I just changed right into a pair of clean clothes, no drying off. For the life of me, I couldn't get the strength in my hands to turn the shower off. So I simply curled up in the corner, wet, cold, and losing my mind. The visuals were so intense at this point I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed, and I was trapped in a really nasty thought-loop. I became convinced my grandfather was watching from heaven and was so disappointed in me. I became convinced none of my friends or family actually cared about me. I was also afraid for poor Luke, tripping while at work. (Although honestly he would do shit like that often.) I was internally just begging for death, but I was afraid that if I did die I'd be stuck in this hell forever.

At some point, I "saw" a sort of tear in the middle of my vision, like I was seeing my nose from inside. The tear slowly opened, and these beautiful 4-D fractals were pouring from the edges. I saw, in the tear, a face. It was colorless, with this strange iridescence around it. In the same instant I recognized it as a face, I saw myself, as a child, giggling and enjoying a warm summer day with my mom. I saw myself, as a teenager, sneaking out of the house. I saw my first car accident. I saw myself, older now, being handed my baby daughter for the first time. I saw myself as an older man, sending my children off to college. And I saw my deathbed. My sister, my wife, my two kids, sitting at my side, tears running down their faces as the EKG flatlines.

And I saw it again. All of it.

And again.

And again.

Over and over, faster every time, until I realized what I was being shown. Not just images, but a lesson. How could a stick figure truly perceive depth? How can a human truly experience time? I was shown the loop; past, present, future, they are the same. The suffering, the happiness, and the boredom are all concurrent. I was in the middle of puzzling out how the loop caused the trick of consciousness when the bathroom door opened.

Matt and Isaac were standing there, looking concerned. I mumbled out "I can't turn it off. I tried." Matt told me it was perfectly fine, and turned it off for me. They lifted me to my feet and guided me back to the living room. The patterns in here were so intense they were all I could see. The couch, the tapestry, the curtains, all bleeding over everything else. Thankfully, my insane revelations had stopped. I fell on the couch, and curled back into a ball, shivering. I don't know how long I laid there before I asked for a blanket, only to be told I was staring right at one on the couch. I could not see it an inch from my face, but I could feel it (though the sensation felt very delayed) and so I crawled underneath it.

For about an hour, I was curled there, writhing, and saying every crazy thing that popped into my head, just spilling my guts. Thankfully, Matt and Isaac were very patient, asking questions and listening intently. (They told me later they were trying to find any logic in my madness and failed.) All of a sudden, in one instant, the fog lifted and the trip relaxed. I sat straight up, pulled the blanket off my head, and grinning at Matt, said "Well I'm glad that's over. I feel much better now." Shortly after I asked them to put on Dark Side Of The Moon, and we sat for awhile, as I listened to them talk about their relatively chill, fun experiences.

At 6:00, Luke got home and I just wrapped him in a hug as soon as he got back. We sat and talked about anything and everything under the sun for the better part of two hours. I had this full body glowing euphoria during. Around 8:30, I smoked another bowl, feeling the last of the psilocybin leaving my system, and quickly fell asleep.

That next day was the most heavenly afterglows I have ever had, it felt like a whole day of peaking on a small dose of molly. Following this, I had about three months of sporadic depression. Since that day, despite having really dark moments, I no longer fall into months-long bouts of depression, and my anxiety is a lot more manageable now. I have also experienced some noticeable persistent hallucinations, namely light halos, level 3 geometry when my eyes are closed, or when staring at single-color surface, and very faint auras.

All in all, this was the most difficult trip I've ever had, but not the last! I learned a lot, and was forced to confront a lot of demons. I would also say that I have been more extroverted since the trip, going out of my way to be social, as opposed to near recluse status.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 113067
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: May 6, 2019	Views: 9,232
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Mushrooms (39), LSD (2) : Difficult Experiences (5), Depression (15), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Combinations (3), Small Group (2-9) (17)