Kirjoitin huhtikuun alun kokemuksestani kuukausi sitten englanninkielistä höpinää eräälle toiselle foorumille (Duncan Trussell Family Hour Forum). Suunnittelin ensin kääntäväni sen suomeksi tätä palstaa varten, mutta enpä nyt taida kuitenkaan jaksaa siihen ryhtyä.. Joten pahoittelut jos se jää joltakulta tästä syystä lukematta.
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I recently spent some time on a tropical island doing a five-day cleansing program, essentially a juice fast with some fiber supplements and twice-daily colonic irrigation. I knew there was a pretty good chance of being able to obtain some shrooms elsewhere on the same island, so I had planned to have a psilocybin experience at the end of the fast. I ended up doing it on the day I broke the fast, having eaten some fruit and salad earlier in the day.
This was only my second experience with an entheogen, the first having been shrooms back in late 1999 in a very crowded and chaotic environment without really knowing what I was getting myself into. Not surprisingly, that one turned into a pretty scary ride but it didn't result in any lasting issues or anxiety about shrooms or anything else for that matter.
I recently became very interested in experiencing shrooms again, largely due to listening to JRE & DTFH. I had also read articles on some of the fascinating recent studies, such as the Johns Hopkins one, and I was hoping for the kind of mystical/spiritual experience the subjects in that study talked about. I had also been listening to a lot of McKenna stuff on back episodes of the Psychedelic Salon. My plan was to take about 30g of fresh shrooms and direct the experience inward by using an eyeshade and headphones.
When I got the shrooms I was amazed. I expected a bag of kind of beat up smallish mushrooms but instead got two big beautiful whole ones, with stems about 15cm long and big caps to match. I estimated their weight at about 30-35g by comparing their weight to that of a cereal bar weighing 25g, but obviously that's just an approximation. When I had set up a couple of comfortable spots, one outside on the terrace of my bungalow and one inside on the bed, and coated myself with mosquito repellent, I took a few deep breaths to temper my excitement and proceeded to eat the two mushrooms. The taste wasn't great but not tough to get down either. Pretty watery and earthy.
I drank a bit of water and went outside to wait the 20-30 minutes I expected it would take for the initial effects to kick in. When I started to feel them a little, I put on the eyeshade and some ambient music. I had prepared a compilation called Return to the Source and some other Ambient Mix thing, I don't normally listen to electronic music and hadn't listened to these tracks either beforehand except to just do a quick pre-screen. Anyway, they turned out to be a great soundtrack for my experience.
Some 20-30 minutes after ingesting the shrooms at 9pm I started having these visions of infinitely big otherworldly vistas of gigantic shelflike shapes with rounded corners. I didn't really understand what they were but I did get the sense of being part of something much, much bigger. I proceeded to think about the nature of love and I thought of it as coursing through our veins like blood, which I thought explained the heart-love connection in modern western symbolism as it is the heart that pumps blood through our bodies.
Throughout the entire experience, I had a sense of being shown things indirectly and interpretatively by a gentle teacher. It didn't feel like hallucinating or imagining things, it felt like I was being shown stuff. I also felt pretty sober through the whole thing, in terms of being capable of rational thought and attempted analysis of what was being shown to me. At the time I contrasted this in my mind with the inebriating nature of alcohol. I also wondered whether what I was seeing was coming from inside me or from somewhere else and thought "if all this is just inside my head, then the brain really is capable of so much more than we regularly allow it to be".
I continued to kind of float or shift from one fascinating huge-scale scene to another as an observer. I was never the tiniest bit worried or fearful about not returning to my own ego/mind afterwards, or even intermittently during the experience.
About one hour after ingestion I was quite aware of the physical discomfort of the wooden deck chair I was on and decided to move inside to lie on the bed instead. Moving wasn't too difficult, I felt a bit heavy of course but pretty operational.
On the comfortable bed I was less distracted by physical sensations, so I went right back into the experience. I thought about how psilocybin and the entheogenic experience has been made illegal by our societies and how that's ridiculous, unfortunate and completely wrong, but still, ultimately, in the great actual scale of things, it's not such a big deal. It's a big deal for this planet and human interaction, yes, but even all that is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
One of the "questions" I had going into the experience concerned nutrition. Lately I have been trying to decide whether to try going vegan or to just eat healthy while including eggs, seafood and occasional meat in my diet. So I was wondering if the psilocybin experience would give me any perspective on that. So I thought about the physical body as a vessel, like an engine, and diet as fuel. Fuel should be clean for optimal performance, but the engine can deal with a few occasional impurities. I also got the sense that it's important to respect and acknowledge what you eat.
As I kind of floated in and out of the deeper experience I was also conscious of tracks changing on my playlist and then I decided to try my favorite band, Tool, instead of ambient. I listened to Reflection and appreciated it for its depth and message ("we are all one mind" and all that) but felt that for the shroom experience, it's better to listen to something less familiar and less bound to my real-life preferences and regular sensory experiences. So I went back to ambient tracks on shuffle after Reflection ended.
I thought about death and whether it's the end or if there is something after. Of course I didn't get a direct answer to that either, but I felt like I was being shown a life force moving on, kind of like a drop of liquid that is part of something bigger, not separate from it, and can rejoin the larger pool of liquid when it comes into contact with it. This life force that I pictured moving on to rejoin this larger, somewhat machine-like, entity was actually not really into the idea of rebirth as a human, as the human experience involves suffering as well as joy, so there was kind of the sense of "must I go through it all again". But then the scene shifted again to the positives of life and our experiences here, of human interaction with good people, and how joyous that experience is and unique in its own right. So if it were to be rebirth instead of moving on to something else, it should be taken with appreciation and gratitude.
Still thinking about rebirth, I got the sense that it would not be a "boring" or repetitive outcome considering how quickly the human mind and human world are evolving and changing right now. This world is on the verge of massive change that could get bad or could get super great, but I wasn't shown which one it will be. But even if it is to be the darker outcome, there is still joy and value in human interaction, even in times of difficulty here on Earth, and no need for fear or despair as the human experience is not all there is.
I also thought about how to improve myself and my human interactions. I didn't get any major insights except to not take things too seriously, to be more playful with the human experience and in interacting with fellow people, as playfulness is a universal trait and increases joy at this level of existence. Also I was gently told not to hurt others, to really not hurt others, not even indirectly without realizing that you are doing it. I got the sense that I should enjoy life, not stress about this and that, just enjoy it all and be kind and loving to others.
That's about all I remember. The way the experience ended was also quite fascinating, as I got the same sense that you get when the credits roll at the end of a movie. The track changed on my playlist and, while there were no actual credits, I just got the sense that okay the show's over for this time. And then I was back on my bed, completely lucid. I took off the eyeshade and headphones and thought I would see if I could sleep. To my great surprise I could fall asleep right away (this was between midnight and 1am, not sure what time exactly) and I slept until 3am, which is when I woke up and spent an hour writing down some notes.
That was it. All in all, it was a very enjoyable and gentle experience with interesting thoughts and closed-eye visuals, definitely with a strong mystical and spiritual sense but not quite strong enough to actually convince me of anything. In hindsight I wish I had taken maybe 50% more, closer to 50g, but since this was my first time in a very long time, and my first time ever doing it with proper appreciation for the importance of "set and setting", I guess it was an appropriate dose. Maybe in a few months' time I'll do it again and go deeper.
