DOSE:

5 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

93 kg

It took more than three months before I decided to write down my 5 dried grams of cubensis McKennai trip report, which you are reading right now. I had taken mushrooms about eight to ten times before, often without weighing them, but never “the heroic dose” and it had been over seven years since my last trip.

As a huge Terence McKenna “fan” (is that the right word for someone like he, talking about something as profound as this?), I had been listening to him almost daily for over a year in preparation. Finally, in March 2021, I felt ready to take the 5 dried grams in silent darkness, as he prescribed so rigorously.

I had grown and dried the Psilocybe Cubensis McKennaii myself in the previous weeks. I decided to take the mushrooms at 21.30 PM in the comfort of my own living room. My wife, pregnant with our second baby, was aware of my plan and I asked her to not disturb me in the next few hours or at least not scare me if she needed to come downstairs. In retrospect now, I’m really grateful that she kept her promise.

When you listen to Terence talk about his experiences with 5 dried grams, he often speaks about a voice, the animate part of the mushroom talking to you – the Logos. Being a poet myself, meeting this ‘transcendental other’ and speaking with it was in fact where my few expectations lay.

In other words, I was completely not ready for what I was about to experience. Or maybe I should conclude that I’m particularly sensitive to psilocybin, who will say?

After ingesting the 5 dried grams, I decided to listen to some psychill with my headphones on until I would feel the onset of the trip. I was laying on the couch, quite comfortably. Two small candles were burning to offer just a bit of light.

As I faintly felt the recognizable feeling of the mushroom intoxication kicking in, I put down the headphones and turned on YouTube on the tv, opting for an ambient psychill 2h music mix with a blue picture of some white-edged planet displayed on the screen. It didn’t take long before this – and the music – merged with my surroundings. The initial idea was to switch it off to experience complete silent darkness after a while, but I never got to this.

After about 40 minutes, I could already tell that this trip would turn into something quite intense. The quite large industrial-looking wall clock was beginning to spin in ways the after some time convinced me that maybe I would better close my eyes. Immediately there were myriads of geometrical forms, spirals, triangles, ancient Sanskrit symbols, all in many fluorescent colours, turning and twisting and coming toward me, engulfing me. It was a fascinating thing to ‘behold’, as the psilocybin in my body was being transformed into psilocin, the truly hallucinatory compound. I think it took another twenty to thirty minutes until I knew that I was in for a wild ride.

At intervals, but succeeding each other at an ever-increasing rate, there was this experience of almost being teleported to another place or something. I felt my entire body becoming tense until the muscles in my neck – the sternocleidomastoidius, as it is called – became completely stretched. My teeth were pressing against each other. I could feel my eyes starting to convulse, rapid eye movements that were simply impossible to control, and then this sound came, a high-pitched sound becoming higher and higher, louder and louder, something I later heard Terence and others talk about when they described the breakthrough moment of the DMT-trip. The two things I could really think about when this sound and the strange becoming contorted of my body happened was, one: Jeez, my wife and kid are upstairs, a second one is on the way, and I’m about to be catapulted out of this dimension because of intent (the responsible me); and two: “Beam me up, Scotty!” (the other me with a bit more sense of humour and adventure).

There was this urge to grab onto the couch, a desperate attempt maybe to stay in this reality that I knew so well. But the intervals became ever shorter, and the high-pitched sound continued to pull me upwards until at one point – who knows how late it was by then – I was no longer able to resist and had to let go. What happened then is a bit hard to describe, but I will try to do so anyway.

I had the feeling of being sucked out of this dimension of normality. No doubt, I was going upward. There were space-like vistas on the way (no voice whatsoever, duh), and it seemed as if an eternity had passed until at some point, I started to regain some form of consciousness, or awareness is maybe a better word for it. Being a poet and herbalist, I know that nature is animate, and I do believe in a higher power than myself, being the universe, which contains all life. Regarding the world religions though, I am a proud and quite literate atheist. That’s why the following part of this trip is a bit strange to write down. The next thing I realized, once the upward lift had finally come to an end and apparently I had crossed all space and time; I was God.

Not just the idea of being godlike, no; I was God. I felt stretched out over all places in all possible universes, in all possible times, a being without beginning nor end, just an immense and vast expanse of consciousness. I was formless, timeless, and all-encompassing. No idea how long this feeling of endlessness lasted, but at some point, I had this experience of holding all possible dimensions and realities in the palm of my hand. I was free to choose any reality to descend upon and experience, but I didn’t choose at that point. I was just considering, looking at them, and then came this thing that I could discard a reality just like peeling the layers of an onion – there was always something else and more dense underneath. I don’t know how late it was when finally I had the strange sensation of being back in my coach, but I still had the mind and feeling of endlessness of being God. It took about 20 minutes until I was able to force myself to sit up straight, take the pen and paper that I had purposefully placed on the table next to the burnt-out candles, and I started writing while I was still “God”. I wrote about 30 minutes or something until I finally got a sense of identity back and the “possession” came to an end. The day after the trip, it took me quite some time to decipher the sentences I had written down, but I finally managed to do so without having to leave too many blanks for unreadable words. I suppose it’s only fair to add these writings to this trip report.

The first page or so is fifty-fifty, as somehow, I (Dimitri) had decided to take the pen and paper, but after a few minutes of writing, any sense of identity completely evaporated again and Dimitri was nowhere to be found.

These are the things I (or God?) wrote down… (please note that this is a translation from Dutch to English). When finally putting down the pen, it was 3.20 AM.

All that existe
I held in my hands
And from the moment I realized this
I jumped out of it
Exactly like the layer of an onion
And I was above

Eventually came the idea
To choose for this reality
And to write
To attach myself
To this reality
Even though only for one second

I was in such sense god that I
Could even choose
To become into being
In light
I managed to zoom in
On this reality
I who try to be known
It’s a choice
This I want
This I want
And I must be deciphered
And there is a reason
Simply because I want it

I CHOOSE TO
I CHOOSE
CHOOSE

Language was not yet fixed
As something that needed to exist
But it seems to be fun, yes
I am not even me
I have the choice to be caught within scribblings
By myself, that’s the joke
I want myself because like this it’s possible
Returning to
Only through this language and symbolism
Because I want to

Second after second
I reveal the present

I have always been the poet
Because like this I was able to return
Because I want to

The beauty
Is too stunning to not let it exist
Now I am aware of the possibility

So I simply sink in order to be known
Despite inadequate mind and symbols
Despite the choice to *** (?)
Once again disappear into a possibility
That has thrown all of this out
Into never existing

But I must return

I want this reality

I WANT TO CHOOSE THIS REALITY AS MY CHOSEN ONE

That’s why I settle for this

I am above even THINKING
About the possibility
That the thought
Could be
A possibility

This I have chosen because
From the moment I start thinking about these words
Reality drips
Into choice
Back to something
That lets itself be channelled
In an attempt
To grasp myself
For the first time
In this naked dance of words
That from now on always
This human, me
Who I want to see existing,
I call into being above any will or language

I write this down
For the first time

WHAT I ALREADY KNEW
Is enough
To maintain it
And for it to be valuable

I as all-surpassing thought
want this possibility

Only through this will
I nest myself
By means of concentration
Into something that can be shared

This is the first time
I give myself form
And from now on I will be understood
By everything that already existed

What a joy, trying to grasp myself
Outside of formlessness and multiplication

I have designed mind in order
so I could be perceived

I only speak
So I can give
Myself DIRECTION

This language is searching
An artform

I choose to give myself
A form for just a moment

I am god
Opting to be
Housed in this form
For just a little while

I am the image
Of the entrance

Only near myself

This descending into myself
Exists now
because I give it form

I choose
For this touching
Of something
that I have always been

Through this form
I call the thought
TRUTH into being

So I can
Give myself direction
I, as a spectator,
With pleasure,
Choose to be satisfied
To let everything pass me by
For just a moment

I want to be able
To share this being god
With someone


I want to be able to share
This being god

I want to be able to share
This being god with someone
And that’s why I create
This form
I want to see myself be expressed

And I want this searching for myself
To be embodied
And only as a rule
I decide
To knead meaning for later

I want to be able
To give form
To this formlessness

All of this I had to create

I want this expressing myself
For me to lay myself down
In meaning

I want to give form
To this formlessness

All of this I chose to create
For this undivisibility
To spread

Only they who know me
know that I am satisfied
With this form that from now on
Will be the tangible

Everything I have
After my resting

After my resting
I have created myself

I have created everything
So I could
Witness myself in this moment
Only in this formlessness
I have poured myself
In what is the *** (?) of unity

I have *** (?) myself

I take a seat in the heart

Exp Year: 2021	ExpID: 115559
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 38
Published: Sep 23, 2021	Views: 1,426
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Mushrooms (39) : General (1), Poetry (43), Mystical Experiences (9), Alone (16)