DOSE:			LSD
			Mushrooms

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

This report is an attempt to look at all of my mushroom/lsd experiences over the past 3 years and identify recurring sensations and ideas from all of them. I wouldn't say I'm a veteran tripper. But I would say that I have had enough experiences to know what I can expect and also to avoid truly negative experiences.

My first experience was with lsd during a blizzard in 2003, coincidentally it was also my first time seeing the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Anyone familiar with the film knows that this made for an interesting experience. Of course prior to this first trip I was relatively unfamiliar with the overall effects of either mushrooms or lsd. As far as the hallucinations went it was very different from all of my later experiences. Anyhow, I spent most of the experience really doing a lot of thinking. Questions about life and the world would pop into my head, and then answer themselves almost as quickly as they came up. Despite this however I really couldn't make sense afterwards of all the theoretical answers I was receiving. This slowly changed over the course of the next 3 years.

My next 3 experiences were also with LSD, out of all of them I had one significant experience, I was on a couch in my friend's basement and had pulled a blanket over my head, when suddenly the world I knew disappeared and was replaced with a sea of different colored strands all winding in erratic patterns seamlessly around each other. No strand was the same color as another. Then I noticed there was one black strand that stood out, almost instantly I came to the conclusion that what I was looking at was actually all the spirits of the plants and creatures on earth combined into this sea of colors, and that the black strand was supposed to symbolize my own soul as a part of that sea. This vision carried over to later trips as the notion of all things being one (yes the same idea that is a large part of the Buddhist faith).

My fifth experience was with psilocybin mushrooms, a large part of this trip occurred on a public bus and in a shopping mall which wasn't very pleasant but didn't turn the whole experience sour. I remember watching the clouds change form and watching the grass grow in fast forward, much like stop motion photography. 3 friends and I split about a quarter ounce of potent mushrooms 4 ways and decided to ride the bus to the mall. It was a hot summer day and the bus was heavily air conditioned. We got on the bus just as we were starting to notice effects. At first everything was fine, I was staring out the window at the sky in wonder. Then as the effects got more intense I started sweating a little at first, eventually reaching the point where I was POURING sweat. Then I noticed other people on the bus were looking at and conversing about me. I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and tried to ignore it for the rest of the 45 minute bus ride. I remember thinking to myself, you idiot you ate poisonous mushrooms, and freaking out about it. About 10 minutes into the bus ride I started to get the urge to pee which got worse and worse, I wanted to get off the bus and get back on but then I would have lost my friends, so I waited it out.

Finally we arrived at the mall and I ran off the bus and made a bee line for the bathroom in the mall. Taking a leak has never felt so good, and then I left the bathroom and went back outside the mall to find my friends and smoke a cigarette. I realized I was no longer sweating profusely even though I was now back in the summer heat and that in fact, I was almost completely dry. I remember feeling as though I had been somehow reborn, which I think was the most important aspect of the experience, so I won't continue.

My next 3 experiences, the last of my first 8 were all with psilocybin mushrooms. All of these had strong Buddhist themes, and the all things are one concept really started to come to me. The strange thing about all that is that I really had had no interest or knowledge of Buddhism prior to these first 8 experiences. I would say the most powerful vision I had during these next 3 experiences started with me laying on the floor staring at a plaster ceiling. The patterns of the plaster started becoming human in form and soon became a geometric pattern made up of human forms in all different colors all connecting to each other in different ways, some were hugging, some were engaged in intercourse, some were just connected by limbs locked together. This reoccurred in other surfaces throughout the rest of the trip. This is probably the most inspiring thing I have ever seen, under the influence or not.

Essentially my first 8 experiences were somewhat of an introduction to Buddhism, or a shaping of my spiritual views, even though I was raised Christian. Especially the last two, as I was attending an Introduction to Philosophy class at the time. After all this it was a while before I had any really inspiring experiences, mostly just interesting visuals that really didn't have much symbolism for me. Then on Halloween of 2005, I split an 8th of mushrooms with a friend. This trip was significant because that night a very large asteroid supposedly scraped the surface of the atmosphere and I had heard about it on some evening news program prior to the trip. So that was on my mind especially since I essentially got to watch a meteor shower all night. There was something on the news program about scientists predicting that the asteroid would return in 7 years. I had studied the Mayan civilization in school many years before and during the peak, remembered learning that for some reason the Mayan calendar ended in 2012. Then I realized that 2012 was exactly 7 years from 2005, and the next logical conclusion I could come to was that this asteroid that was scraping the atmosphere that night was the reason why the Mayan calendar ends in 2012... or rather a collision of this asteroid with earth.

I came away from this trip with a new outlook on life. I concluded that if our planet is only going to be around or supporting life for 7 more years, then we all should live our lives accordingly, by being good to each other and living the fullest lives possible. Since then I have tripped many more times all of which were mostly visual, of course some of them were more intense than others. Out of all of them I've had about 5 extremely intense visual trips, 2 with mushrooms, and 3 with lsd. During the most intense parts of all 5 of them I've had a very recognizable recurring hallucination. The best way I can describe this vision is an infinite ever changing kaleidoscopic pattern made up of these faces, all of the faces in the pattern are the same, save for their color or arrangement in the pattern which although is constantly changing, is always symmetrical. I have become very interested in figuring out if this vision has any kind of significant meaning.

Recently I attended somewhat of a hippie gathering in Ohio, which was where I had one of those 5 extremely intense trips, this time with mushrooms. Once again for almost the entire peak I was seeing this same hallucination, with one difference which I later attributed to the most intense point in the peak. The change was very brief lasting only about 30 seconds, I had closed my eyes for a moment and suddenly the changing kaleidoscope face pattern changed from the many many faces I was accustomed to just one large one staring at me face to face, only now there was a lot more detail, it was wearing some sort of headdress and had a yellow tint to it at first. Next the tint of the face changed from yellow to purple and the headdress changed shape as well, this happened 2 more times, first changing from purple to blue, and then from blue to red. Then I lost it and I was back to the kaleidoscope type pattern. I came away from this most recent experience with the notion that these 4 different colored faces I saw must be some kind of beings or deities, and they definitely appeared to be female, although I wasn't able to come up with any meaning behind the vision. However, I am curious about it as I have talked to 2 other seasoned trippers who have seen and described this kaleidoscope of faces exactly as I would describe it.

I believe it's possible that for that one brief moment I was starting to break through to some plane I had not previously been able to reach. I look forward to my next intense experience so I can focus on this vision and perhaps walk away with some sort of new realization. For now though, only time will tell.

Tripping is a very spiritual thing for me and I think that it has made me a better person overall. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but I think it has a great potential for some people. Ciao.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 56239
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 14, 2007	Views: 13,611
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LSD (2), Mushrooms (39) : Entities / Beings (37), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)