The more I write about these experiences, the more I understand word’s limits in trying to capture the feelings that fill the eight or so hours the fungus metabolizes. Clichés will be hard to avoid. They will appear. Every adventure feels as if it is the most significant one yet. This one is no different. Lets see how I fair trying to capture the memories, locking them in words, and chaining them to the page.
Paige had made cookies. Dac had started his journey a few hours ago with his love, Ashley, followed an hour or so behind. Paige had just ingested her sacred plant. About forty-five minutes later Krishna and myself chomped down on our fungal sprinkled chocolate chip treats. All cosmonauts where accounted for.
Setting the setting as the mantra mandates; Carl Sagan was the narrator. Youtube provided The Pale Blue Dot, The Sagan Series Part 1, The Most Fascinating Fact and It is Always Now for the hour it took for the mushrooms to start taking effect.
Krishna and I ended up on the driveway looking at the night sky. There weren’t many stars visible but there was a bright half moon with enough clouds between our just recently dilated eyes and that reflecting rock to allow for visual tricks to start.
The first alteration to my visual perception I noticed was the view of the sky. It looked larger. It seemed panoramic. I was like seeing through a kind of wide fish lens. It was so beautiful. Also, everything appeared as if it was in 1080 pixels as oppose to the 720 of sobriety.
Still sprawled on the driveway I looked at the goddess to my right and saw a faint image behind her appearing to hide itself in the concrete. I knew this was the drug. I was excited. Other psychonauts talk about seeing hieroglyphics or Incan or Egyptian symbols on surfaces. This wasn’t what I saw. At first the pattern was faint but after a little concentration on the driveway the images developed in sharpness. It was an intricate and complex pattern. It didn’t appear to be any language. It reminded me of patterns I saw on my first DMT trip. It reminded me of Alex Grey.
It reminded me how much I love this plant.
Krishna and I then felt compelled to do yoga. After failed poses, laughs, successful poses, laughs, and tear inducing laughter, we were dancing in the kitchen. I had never taken a psychedelic with a romantic partner. I was enjoying it.
We eventually found ourselves in the garage. Paige, Ashley, Dacorey, Krishna, and myself. I had never mixed the mushrooms with any other drug. Tonight would be different. As the herb made itself around our tribe a few times…
Shit. Got. Real.
I couldn’t speak. My consciousness had left the room. My eyes were fixed on the ceiling. As the consciousnesses around me made noises with the part of their flesh sacs we call mouths, the ceiling would morph and change into subtle symbols. A deeper part of me was communicating with the shallower me that operated my flesh sac on a daily basis. This game, where the deeper part of me created symbols on the ceiling for my shallower part to decipher went on for maybe twenty minutes. The truths I can recall from this experience are
1) We still construct our social lives as our ancestors did, as tribes. Many people have vast tribes due to social media but they lack real connections. The idea that 2 parents raise 3 children and all of them spend the majority of their time in a little box with air conditioning and television isn’t ideal for your social circuitry.
I was happy with my current tribe.
2) The subconscious is real. I’ve learned about this concept for years. I believed it. This night, I felt it. It felt like God. It may have been God. I felt, for maybe three minutes, what I would call a religious experience only because I feel that will best convey the feeling to other readers. I felt like I was being given a universal truth. The truth was that the subconscious is real: that there is a universal, collective, subconscious. I felt the experience tell me that that was all I was going to be given at that moment so return to the physical bodies around you. Return to your tribe.
I did return. Me and Krishna retired to my room. Once we got into the boarders of my room and it was only our two consciousnesses interacting, the experience ascended to a level of psychedelictry I had never been before.
A common negative loop I go to when particularly high on weed is my body feeling misaligned. I’ve had surgery on my right rotator cuff and multiple back injuries. I believe that I can feel the muscular and connective tissue issues and I try to fix them. I started dancing in a way I felt would help my body. Without having to speak, Krishna began moving with me. Whenever I’d lose my balance she’d be in the exact place she’d need to be to help me back to balance.
I kept calling life a dance.
An interesting note about this part of the night is when I’d start faltering in my movements; Krishna--because she needed to be—became a strong, stern teacher. She’s much younger than I, but in these moments she felt, and for all purposes was, much older, wiser, and more positive than I.
We were so fucking connected at some points. The most connected my consciousness has ever been to another. All I care to write about this part of the trip is she saw me at my most vulnerable and met it without judgment and returned my negativity and paranoia with love, compassion, and patience.
Just as I had my moments of weakness, she did too. She had met my insecurity and suffering with love, and so I attempted to do the same for her. This culminated in us laying in bed, holding a gaze for what felt like at least two hours, exchanging raw thoughts. I could see The Void in her eyes, the place that is the context for all creation, and it was. We cried for each other’s suffering. Smiled at our ‘us.’ And eventually became sober enough to consume the processed garbage that is Subway.
Once fueled. We made love.
Best trip yet.
