DOSE:

2 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

I first took shrooms (not sure which species) about a month and a half ago. I've taken them twice since--getting the hang of them, experimenting with doses, etc. This report is about my first time.

First, some background. I've only recently been getting into psychedelics, having previously only smoked weed, which I do several times a week. I'm very spiritually/mystically oriented, love to read, a nature lover, a contemplative. I spend most of my time alone or with my girlfriend. My interest in the psychedelics has stemmed from my interests in religious, psychological, and philosophical exploration.

I was not taking any prescription medications at the time.

Before this first trip, I had been reading Alan Watts pretty heavily, and listening to his lectures. He helped me prepare to enter this new world, instilling in me a much more pliable, flexible psychological attitude towards the world. I've always had a sort of go-with-the-flow attitude, and reading/listening to him helped to flesh out that attitude with support from his interpretations of Eastern ideas and psychology. In particular, his book The Joyous Cosmology, relating his experiences with psychedelics, which I read several times through in the week before taking the shrooms.

I was going to share the experience with my friend (I'll call him D), another admirer of Alan Watts, among other similar figures. We decided to go up to a nearby forest, in a hilly area beside a river. The day was pleasantly crisp and mostly sunny.

We woke up in the morning and made peanut butter sandwiches with the shrooms, I'd say about 2 grams each.

T :0 We didn't have anything to eat until eating the shrooms around noon, once we were already in the forest. After eating, we trekked down to these rocks along the water, chatting and having a nice time exploring and being boys.

T :45 After about 45 minutes, we were sitting down looking at the river, the sun shining brightly. D started laughing tremendously, and I followed suit. I stared at the river and suddenly felt as if my awareness, my view out towards the world and broadened gently but greatly, like the difference between squinting and seeing with one's eyes fully open. I stared at the flowing water, the buildings across the water, the bridge, and I felt as if the entire scene was being tipped into me, like I was drinking the world. This is was the start, we both agreed.

We continued climbing the rocks, enjoying chatting and enjoying silences. I remember Watts writing in The Joyous Cosmology that on psychedelics, one can appreciate minute patterns much more clearly, as if one's perception had the variability of a microscope, able to take in large scenes (like the river before) and miniscule scenes, like the patterns on the rocks that I suddenly became captivated with. Because I didn't know how long I would be tripping for, I used this as a check-in periodically, to see how much, and if I still was tripping. I would go up to a leaf and look at it very closely, and feel that same fascination with all of these little patterns everywhere. I felt so at home, like I had sank into the world, into the trees and rocks and people around me, and that I wasn't a bag of skin walking around. It felt so good because I had been reading, especially in Watts' writings, about feeling the way that is often described in mystical writings, of feeling nonduality, no boundary between oneself and everything else, or at least a feeling that the boundary between oneself and the rest of the world is in fact the same boundary. The classic "drop in the ocean" sensation. I had never felt this as powerfully as I did on this day--I have felt it elsewhere a few times, but I have mostly had to settle for intellectualizing it through different readings. The trick now, I'm finding, is how to integrate this feeling into my "straight" consciousness.

T 2:00 We decided to move back up to the forest, up from the rocks by the water. When we saw a group of people walking along a path, it was very powerful to experience other humans again after a couple hours. D said he saw a thick red glow around them as they walked towards us. We walked on, picking up walking sticks, chatting, just loving everything.

T 3:00 We came upon a little grove of trees, and I was struck with an urge to climb one. This was for me, along with the beginning, staring at the river, the most powerful experience of the day. The tree I chose was light gray, and quite young, as the branches were very flexible and green inside. When I grabbed the tree, I felt a similar sensation to when I hold hands with my girlfriend, or when I hug a good friend. I felt so connected to it. I climbed it swiftly and easily, and the branches were so supple that I could swing on them, sit on them, twirl on them, without any fear of falling. I felt like I was dancing with the tree. I climbed up, then back down, then up a little higher, then back down. D was looking for his own, and he eventually found one a little further down this little slope. I then climbed way up in the tree, still not fearful, and just hugged the tree while we both stared out over the hills to the city beyond us. We were silent for quite a while, maybe 20 minutes or so. We would speak a little bit, then just stare out, contentedly. A boy our age came walking along a path, and we chatted with him for a bit. I felt such an expansive peace, the color and breadth of the blue sky. I learned so much just playing in that tree, moving with its branches, trusting it. As I looked out over everything I could see--the people, the buildings, the trees, the cars--I felt myself much more able to sink into the sensation of feeling the "I" that is much larger than my ego. Instead of my normal consciousness, which is like a stream of water flowing through one narrow channel--my ego--I felt like the source of the water itself, and I felt myself as this source flowing through everything around me. The tree I was dancing with--I was dancing with myself, in this sense. I was D, I was the buildings, the sky. I had been reading about this experience for so long, and I finally had a taste of it. I was speechless.

At one moment, D realized that from our spots in the trees we were overlooking the bench where we had sat earlier to eat the shrooms! We both laughed :)

T 4:00 After coming down from the trees, it was starting to get a little darker, so we decided to start slowly making our way out. I could feel myself beginning to come down a little bit, but the come down was very gentle and slow for me.

T 5:00 Walking out into the street--cars, pedestrians, signs, mechanical sounds. Jarring at first, but very pleasant after a while. We make our way to a bank, grab some money, and hop on a train to get some dinner.

At dinner, I definitely felt much more closer to my straight consciousness, just feeling very calm and open. Later that night, D and I went to a house show, which I had to leave early from because I had a splitting headache, probably from a combination of the shrooms and the loud music at the party.

I can say something about physical effects: the entire trip I didn't feel any nausea, I could just tell when my body was digesting the shrooms (it's a distinctive feeling for my body, that I have felt during subsequent trips); I also yawned pleasantly several times. Other than that, nothing to report.

Also, I never closed my eyes once during the entire trip, so I can't report on closed-eye visuals. No open-eye visuals or distortions.

All in all, I'd say the trip lasted about 5 hours. This first time was quite a glowing experience. I am interested in exploring different natural settings with higher doses of shrooms, perhaps with Syrian Rue, and seeing just how far I can sink into the sensation of feeling one with nature. My second experience, a few weeks later, was at the zoo, which added some dimension to this first experience beautifully.

I can also say that my experiences so far with shrooms have opened up a world around me where things feel more numinous. I am interested in exploring this numinosity.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 95304
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Dec 6, 2025	Views: Not Supported
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Mushrooms (39) : Nature / Outdoors (23), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)