DOSE: T+ 0:00	1 - 2 g	oral	Mushrooms	(dried)
T+ 1:00		oral	MDMA
T+ 0:00		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

I'd moved out to a small mountain town, around 4000km from where I was living, to take a summer job working for a national park. Although I didn't know anyone when I first moved out there, I rapidly gained a group of friends, mostly young workers at the gym I'd go to every other day. I'd been a committed fan of electronic music for over a decade -- drum and bass, jungle, dubstep, house, you name it -- and I knew that the second largest "psychedelic" electronic music festival in the world happened to be a short 6 hour drive away! Naturally, I extended the invitation to anyone I met that seemed cool and could be interested in that kind of experience. Growing up, virtually no-one around me liked that kind of music or really craved the drugs-and-EDM thing. I found a pair of girls that seemed very into it, we all bought tickets, and before I knew it I had a car, time booked off, and a squad of 6 cool people ready to go to this festival, which was rapidly approaching.

About a week before we left, I met a girl. I’d never had a serious girlfriend or boyfriend before, and had a massive amount of anxiety and terrible self-talk about the fact, which made it pretty difficult to initiate relationships. I hit it off incredibly well with this girl when we first met, and things were going well, but the anxiety just built — I’m sure that if it weren’t for my experience at the festival, it would’ve fizzled out like all previous attempts I’d made at connecting to another heart.

Cut to the festival. We’d all agreed to do a combination of three drugs: weed, MDMA and mushrooms. I’d done MDMA once before, but it must’ve been a dud: it had no effect. I’d done mushrooms maybe eight times, many years before — probably hadn’t done them in at least 4 years — and smoked weed on at least a monthly basis since about the age of 14. The girl in charge of bringing the drugs whipped out the M on the midnight car ride out— unlike the dirty little pills I was used to, this was a glorious, enormous shining gray crystal. It was about the size of a kiwi, and was calculated to be about 5 hits’ worth each for six people over the course of the three-day festival.

Since it was a very drug-friendly festival — alcohol was banned, but drugs were basically encouraged — we took the M to get tested to make sure it didn’t have any fentanyl or other unwanted substances in it.

That night, we went to one of the stages, deep in the forest and lit with an incredible display of shimmering swords of colour, packed with hundreds of people between the trees. We were lucky enough to snag a spot on a small set of elevated rocks near the stage, which allowed us to have an incredible elevated view of the entire forest stage. I’d taken a gram or two of shrooms an hour earlier, and we popped the Molly, each swallowing two small raisin-sized doses wrapped in Kleenex. The music was incredible, if a little overpowering, before the Molly, and life was about to get a whole lot more intense.

I slowly started to come up. A thick, close-but-far feeling of joyful awareness began to permeate the world. I felt in complete control of everything, and complete awe and love for everything. The music was blowing my goddamn mind and my body tingled ethereally as I danced. Time shifted to a slower, more concentrated and deliberate mode. The light rain created tiny crystals in the bars of light flashing out from the stage, making us all feel like we were bathed in mineral clarity. I felt an unbelievable sense of unity and love for the people surrounding me in the forest, and a strangely strong awareness of the Earth, and the land; awareness of our identity as humans, mystical creatures of extreme spiritual power going absolutely apeshit on the dance floor under the sky and trees. I was dancing my ass off.

One of the girls I had come with, a co-worker of the main group, had been the “odd one out” of the group because of her weird vibes from the beginning. She rarely had anything positive to say and seemed angry and sad. In my everyday weakness, I’d gone along with the others and not engaged with her much. But in this state of extreme M compassion I felt inclined to put an arm around her and flash her a huge smile . She responded in kind and we started having a great time. Everything was heavy. The air was heavy with pure fun and sexy tension. I felt the thickness and absolutely relished it.

We moved to another stage, this one huge and in the middle of an open field. We pushed to the front and started jumping around with the ragers next to the ear-splitting speakers. It was incredibly fun, and the dancing took my high to the next level of ecstasy.

As glorious golden images of colour and love exploded in my mind’s eye, my thoughts immediately and furiously turned to the girl I’d just started seeing — we were maybe two dates in. The concept that she really likes me took over my mind: for the first time since childhood, I accepted that I was actually loved, romantically, by this beautiful person. She saw me and appreciated me. We had sex and I gave my love to her and she to me. A clear, powerful image came into my mind: the two of us in embrace, energy flowing into each other as well as physical bodies, enveloped by this endlessly present joy and compassion. It was so beautiful and so beyond anything I’d ever expected or dreamed up in my everyday life and rocked me to my core. If I was a crying man, I would’ve burst into tears at this point. I felt so freed and light by this knowledge and this possibility of true love. I danced the night away and had an incredible time at the rest of the festival.

When I came back to the mountain town, all I had on my mind was that image and the feeling of such juicy exciting golden love of an infinitely interconnected embrace. I felt so much love for her. I was drying out a tent in my backyard when she came by for our first time seeing each other. I was full of anxiety and didn’t believe it could happen like the vision. But she came in and somehow,
It did.

The vision and the feeling of it came rushing back, just as real and strong as it had been under the influence of mind-bending drugs.

MDMA can heal, and MDMA can open doors.

Extreme love for it and what it can do. Thanks for reading!

Exp Year: 2019	ExpID: 114669
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Aug 14, 2020	Views: 944
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MDMA (3), Mushrooms (39) : Festival / Lg. Crowd (24), Glowing Experiences (4), Combinations (3), General (1)