Warning: This is a lengthy introduction and depiction of how I went from who I was to who I am today.
Hey everyone. I noticed this site pop up while searching for psilocybin experience reports. There was one post in particular with a lot of comments that has been drawing me to this community. I feel like I am in tune with a lot of people here judging from what I've been reading from various threads.
I don't know how I want to start this, so I won't give it much thought and I'll just let the soul do the typing.
I was very sensitive to my environment as a child. I recognized how strange reality was from a very young age. I would question just about everything. A particular memory I have is questioning life and death around 9 years of age. I would ask myself, "So if there is a God, who created him? And what created that? And then that?" and then I would question death and start asking myself "Who am I?"
For most of my life I let this awareness build. Being somebody with Bipolar, I feel as though that is part of the reason why I was having these "mini mushroom trips" as I often call them, almost all of the time until this day. I grew up being bullied and feeling as though I could never do anything right and it's why I lack confidence today and why I believe that I had the worst possible trip that I could have ever imagined experiencing.
I first tried marijuana when I was 20. I'm 24 now, btw. This realization of how perception can shift, or how the mind and body can feel different was quite impactful at the time. I never experienced any anxiety at all for the first few weeks of smoking. As time went on I became more drawn towards my mortality and those big questions.
There were a few panic attacks, but life continued. Finally after some time I purchased some salvia divinorum from a local marijuana shop. Me and my friends were excited to try it, and so we did. Again, I entered the realization that more exists beyond this reality. That there is some other dimension or ability to become aware of "something else".
It was March 2012 when I had the most intense experience of my life. It occurred the night when Mars was closest to Earth. I should also mention that before and after these experiences I developed an intense lust for knowledge out of nowhere after playing videos games my entire life and just not caring. As time has gone on I've become quite attached to studying and monitoring earthquakes as well as monitoring the Sun and other stars.
On the night of the mushrooms I had headed over to my friend Russell's house in a part of town that I never felt entirely comfortable in. A new setting with old friends, but a new atmosphere all the same. These friends are supportive and have taken psychedelics many times, all with countless positive and transformative experiences so I knew that I was in good hands. I took 2.5 grams of these skinny tall caps and that was it.
One hour passed and nothing, until finally 20 minutes later I started to feel the effects. I should mention that I was also taking an antipsychotic for Bipolar at the time, which I had decided not to take the night before, and I had gone into the experience on an empty stomach. During the initial onset I found everything funny. I began rubbing my hair off the floor in this weird ritualistic way, sort of grooving to the music that was on.
There was a blend of Terrence McKenna, psytrance and other stuff playing most of the trip. The atmosphere felt different quickly and I felt lifted. I began to see visual hallucinations on a mild to medium level, such as eyes in my friend's forehead and swirling patterns on the curtains in the window. After this phase I began to think... a lot.
I remember blurting out loud that it felt like information was being uploaded into my brain at super sonic speeds. I was comprehending all of these revelations, letting them fall all around me at the rate in which snow flakes hit you while standing under a light source. It was overwhelming, but addictive. I began to envision society as a whole and visualize politicians, business men, up the chain and to the bottom. I felt like I could recognize the deception that was going on in the world and felt connected to a sense of truth that I found life changing.
I wish that I could remember all that I took in, but I feel as though I lost 80% of it all.
I just know that I felt bound to some sort of other realm where everything was foreign. Anyways, this part of the trip escalated to something more dreadful. I began to think of all of my anxiety and fears in life, and began to think of my family, recognizing how fragile they all are and how much I don't do for them, etc.
I began to think of what would happen if I died and how they would react, as if I was soaring above them in a sort of bardo state watching down on them. It seriously made me panic so much. I began to think of my soul, my essence, my core, and I recognized whoever was there behind the layers. I recognized that my actual self has been hidden away most of my life and questioned why. It was all that I could focus on as it carried an alien atmosphere with it.
The dread continued and I found myself questioning everything. By the end of it I felt like a stranger who had learned everything about the person who I identified as me. It's like I had split into two forms of consciousness. The one in the other dimension, and the one within normal reality. I knew both were the same me, but it didn't feel that way.
I found myself smoking outside and feeling succumb by fear, thinking the police sirens in the distance were coming to get me. I went inside and told my friends that I was going to sleep and desperately tried to shake the feelings of self realization, ego death, whatever it was that I was experiencing. Seconds felt like hours, and at one point while tripping I actually thought the sun was coming up and I was fine, then realized only 3 minutes had passed.
After about another hour of this I began to return to normal, then within another 30 minutes I felt great, so me and my friends took off and went for a coffee. I felt so grateful to return to a normal connectivity with reality. I felt like kissing the ground - but then from that moment on I developed nasty anxiety in the form of panic attacks and began questioning all of the things I had questioned during the trip, almost on a daily basis until I developed a few tics and phobias along the way, a few triggers that would set me down the road into the madness.
I had to stop smoking weed for 7 months, and when I tried it again I went back into the same sort of mind set because I was anticipating it. I pulled through and have since been fine toking. I've met a wonderful girl and for a while figured that this stuff would be behind me, despite this sense of self and my essence flickering in my psyche often.
Due to all that anxiety I took a year and a half off of work and lived off what I had saved. Things have been getting rough and now I'm heading out to work next month for the first time since my trip.
Through all of this I have developed a lot of mental skills I hadn't prevously had, as well as a lot of interest in ancient culture and their structures, sacred geometry and a sense of spirituality that feels strong.
There's a part of the old me, the fragile me, who went through life without a care that is gone, and a part of that side of me that still exists. The part that is gone has been replaced by an expansion of awareness that I fear may always shake me with fear and deep questions from time to time. Regardless of it all, I'm thankful for what I experienced.
I feel as though people here are able to understand what I experienced. I know that this was too long, but it is what it is. It's hard to articulate all of this often, and this might be the first time I've done it so well.
With that said, nice to meet you all.