DOSE: T+ 0:00			Pharms - Buprenorphine	(daily)
T+ 0:00			Naloxone	(daily)
T+ 0:00	3 - 4 g	oral	Mushrooms	(ground / crushed)
T+ 0:30	5 - 6 g	oral	Mushrooms	(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

You try to make everything perfect, so that you can have the best experience possible.  You clean your house, you prepare the things you might need/want on your journey; water, food, paper for drawing, etc.  Perhaps you lay out all your blankets because you know your silly ass is going to end up on the ground, "connecting with the Earth".  You might also do some housekeeping in your head space; clean mind, clean body, all that. So you meditate, trying to put yourself in the place you want to be when the shroom arrives.  You try to control your environment to enhance the trip.  Perhaps you even believe this will *ensure* a good trip.

Often, the shroom seemingly appreciates the effort you have put in to trying to respectfully accept its many wonderful, powerful gifts and lessons, and often it rewards you with beautiful experiences that leave you with an overwhelming sense of love, beauty, and connectedness to the universe.  But sometimes, the shroom gives you the gifts and lessons that you *need*, not the ones you asked for or tried to set yourself up for....

I do all of these things just about every time I meet with the shroom.  It's good to be a polite host.  I suspect that all of us do this to one extent or another, whether we anthropomorphize the shrooms or not.  It stresses me out though because I know deep down I'm just trying to avoid a "bad trip" moreso than I'm just trying to be in a nice atmosphere.  Don't get me wrong, I do not believe any trip is a "bad trip", they are all valuable in their own way, even if soul crushingly terrifying in the moment.  I also do this as my ritual.  I suspect we all have our own.  Anyone experienced in psychedelia will tell you, "Don't try to control the trip, let it take you." and that is great advice because more often than not if you try to control it you're going to have a bad time, mkay?

That said, I feel like every time I do this I am lying to the shroom.  I don't live everyday like that, running around cleaning everything and making everything just right so the experience will be perfect, I'm no saint, I just get up and go about my day, like we do.  So the shroom probably thinks I'm something I'm not.  But I intend to reveal myself to it, the real self.

Let me derail this for a moment, this story needs a background.... 

I have been an opiate addict/abuser for 22 years.  I've never had any real debilitating pain or injuries or anything, I just hate my job and I really like eating pills to numb that pain.  Except I don't like eating pills.  I'm nearly suicidal because of my addictions, and because I refuse to steal or put my family out to get my drug I go through withdrawals regularly.  I'm a drug addict but that doesn't mean I'm a monster, I keep my demons to myself.  Those are my burdens to carry and I will not share that weight with with those I love.

Now though, I am finding it harder and harder to carry these burdens.  I can't keep it up anymore, I can't go to work when I'm sick like I could when I was younger and I won't let my family suffer for my stupidity so it is time to change.  I must do something to get off this ride.

I go to a clinic where they put me on Suboxone which is, believe me, a nasty drug.  The idea was to change my pattern of behavior that I've been clinging to for over 20 years.  Wake up, find drugs, acquire drugs, go to work, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat.  For anyone who doesn't know, this process is truly maddening and becomes an addiction in itself.  Finding drugs seems to release dopamine or something, it's a rush in itself.  But it's also a personal slice of hell when I can't score or I know that if I don't use this money for bills my wife is leaving my sorry ass.  The mind of a drug addict is constantly doing mental gymnastics to justify the insanity of what we're doing. 

So suboxone *is* working to change my behavior.  In 7 months I haven't eaten a single pill (except the subs) and I have fundamentally changed my drug seeking behavior.  Shit is getting done around the house now, like I'm super productive, you have no idea how much time is consumed trying to find drugs, unless you do, then I'm sorry.  Best part is, after the first week of that shit, it doesn't even get me high anymore.  Or so I thought. 

I'd wager that most of the doctors that are prescribing this shit are the true scum of the world. These are the real drug dealers my teachers and parents tried to warn me about as a kid.  They swore an oath (hypocritical oath lol) to help those in need and we trust them, literally, with our lives. It's so easy to believe a man who has 12 more years of education than me when he tells me something will be good for me if I don't change my paradigm.  These people are just doing a job for money.   Some care I'm sure... Anyway...

After the 3rd month I asked to start tapering down, after all my goal is to get off the drugs, and besides they're incredibly expensive and health insurance (fucking America) doesn't give a fuck about my recovery so they don't cover it. Not to mention I gotta pay the drug dealer for the script.  $200 a month +$25 for drug tests, because if I'm taking anything else I can't have the Suboxone.  Technically, I'm still spending as much as I was on the street. 

*"Getting off these drugs is a very slow and lengthy process, I suggest we wait a couple of more months to let the healing continue."* The good doctor told me.  I had no real issue with that, I trusted him. 

By month 7 I am still on the maximum dose the state can legally prescribe me and I'm asking to be taken down every month.  I begin to realize what's going on and I start reading up.  I know now he has no intention of taking me off these drugs because at month 8 I'm prescribed 3 per day as usual and after my unrelenting desire to come down I'm told to only take 2¾ every day. FOR THE NEXT 2 MONTHS. 

At this point I'm done.  I realize that this man probably sees 20 people a day, and this is all this clinic does by the way; a husband and wife venture, at $200 a pop, and promises them recovery with no intention of actually setting them free.  So I stop going.  I will not be a slave anymore. I try to taper myself off, which seems to go great.  What I didn't realize is the half life of Suboxone is ridiculously long and it actually accumulates inside of me, sort of like stacking.  At a certain point I'm just saving more for later, in a sense.  I start to get sick because I'm not taking enough anymore and my backlog is running out.   I felt great for that first week only taking a half pill a day, but that shit was accumulated in my system from heavy dosing every day for months.  I'm nearly out of my medicine and since I bailed on the program I won't be let back in. 

Time to call on the medicine I know can really work, the shroom. 

I acquire a half oz of some very nice looking Golden Teachers and I am prepared to take a heroic dose that night after work and sort myself out, once and for all.  Except this time, I'm not going to lie to the shroom, I'm going to show it who/what I really am.  I want it to meet the real me. I do not clean.  I do not meditate.  I do not plan. I do nothing but focus my intent on exposing my weakness to the universe and having the shroom teach me how to set myself free. 

I explain to my wife that I'm going to trip tonight but I do not tell her my intention; she would soon find out anyway because shit is about to get heavy.  We get the kid to sleep about 8:30pm and I begin consuming the shroom.  I eat spoonfuls of crushed powder, one after the other until I've had nearly 4 grams.  Not a hero dose to be sure, but I wanted to sniff these out, I'd never purchased from this guy before. 

The wife and I chat for a while I browse for anime on Netflix.  I don't watch anime in real life, but I love it when I'm flying through hyperspace for some reason.   I settle on Kill la Kill.  Bad idea, in retrospect.  About 9pm the Mrs. kisses me goodnight, asks if I'll be alright, "of course" I respond, and she's off. 

I would not be alright. 

By now I can feel the shroom taking me over, the colors aren't as vibrant as I'd like, but everything has a sort of aura quality to it.  It is like I can see every objects' molecular signature as a vibrating colored ring.  Time to eat more of these! (Bad idea you impulsive monkey)

I eat several more spoonfuls (I approximate 5-6 more grams) and sit back in my chair.  The visuals are coming, but they aren't right, I'm definitely getting some visuals but they're not like any that I have really experienced before.  These are very dark feeling and everything has an aura, living or not.  Most of them seem terribly out of place and not angelic in nature, at all.

It's cool though, I'm just tripping...

Ok fucking hard now.

Time check : 9:15pm (dude)

Everything is vibrating with great intensity in waves now.  It's as if something is holding my very core and vibrating it.   Imagine holding one of those vibrating back massagers to your forehead and turning it on for a couple of seconds every 30 seconds or so.  It was incredibly intense, and began to get very loud, almost like a train passing right by me. 

This takes my breath away and I need a different view so I go to the backyard where I have spent many a night laying on the trampoline and pondering the infinite wonders of the universe.  It was very cold out that night and I became immediately uncomfortable, which is weird because my backyard has been my tripping sanctuary for years.  I realized that I was panicking.  I realized I was about to get what I asked for.  I wanted the shroom to set me free but that is not what the shroom is here for, it does not serve me or my "wants". It is here to share it's knowledge and insight with those willing to listen with their hearts.  It's here, to tell me what I need to hear. 

I run back inside because I realize now this is going to be a rough ride, I can feel it coming on. I have to calm myself before I spiral out of control.  I know better than to control it but I can't help it, this is heavy, heavy shit coming.  I sit in my chair and I look at my dog who is standing defensively with that mohawk they get on their backs when they're about to attack, and she is dead ass staring into the depths of my soul and she is scared of me!  The vibrating thing comes back with an intensity I lack the words to adequately describe.  It was like God vibrating the entire universe all around me, and not in a happy good vibration type way, more like you just shattered the fabric of your reality vibrating and for real shit is about to shatter so duck and cover.

I yell for my wife to come get the dog because I think she's going to attack me and she runs in to the living room and calls for the dog to come with her.  To me it seemed as if the dog was backing away from me but never turning her back out of fear that I would attack.  I was informed the next day by my wife that the dog was asleep when I called for her and she went right to bed. ¯\(°_o)/¯ shrooms do be that way sometimes.

Now that the dog was put away I calmed down for a brief respite.  In this moment of clarity I was able to check the clock, 9:45pm, this shit was just beginning....  I grabbed a blanket and layed on the couch.  My mind began to deconstruct, it seemed to fragment.  Each thought became a tangible physical space in my head, packed in like a moving van but inside an infinite conch shell, I could see them with my mind's eye and they began to....slide, is the best word to describe it, or more like being suspended in the middle of the conch shell as it expanded in a spiral infinitely outward and inward at once, they were sliding over and under each other getting all mixed up and out of space dimensionally.  I was losing sense of self as my identity, my thoughts and memories, began to scatter, as if they were running from something and getting trampled in the stampede. 

Spoiler alert - Ego death, incoming. 

Keep in mind, my eyes are closed all this time, these aren't visual hallucinations, they are in my mind. All CEV

As I tried to lay back and let go, these silver geometric fractal skinned snakes began to coil their way through my disorganized thoughts, or rather my desperate attempt to hold on what was left of my ego trying to protect my "identity".  There were 2 of them, each identical and moving in a perfect mirror image of themselves eating away at my being/essence...me... as they writhed and twisted their way towards what I assume was my self, my mind's eye, I suppose.  As they approached me they stood tall on their tails, rising 50ft above me it seemed.  Their mouths opened and they began doing something akin to throat singing.

At this point I'm terrified beyond all belief and I crawl to my wife's bedside waking her up in a fury and climb in beside her and proclaim, "snakes are eating my brain, Sarah, they're killing me!". She immediately takes hold of me and reminds me that this is just the shroom and that I've nothing to fear, repeating the words I told her to tell me if this happens.  But it doesn't matter what she's telling me, I'm scared so badly now I'm sobbing like an infant in my wife's arms. Literally screaming for my mom scared.  Broken.

Suddenly, the most powerful noise I've ever heard CRACKS across my entire universe like lighting striking from a thousand angles all at once around me, and I feel my soul suddenly being removed from body, which I understand instantly to be my vessel, not myself or who I am.  It's just a body, a holding cell, I'm calm.... I see my soul; it's Jade/blue colored and shaped as a tear drop and made of fractals and it's so beautiful I want to cry... It is then that the snakes come out from behind it, except now they are black and dripping with vile ooze.  They begin to constrict around my soul and they squeeze at it, making it hard for my soul to breathe.  I ask, "What is happening?" and the loudest, most magnificent booming voice I'll ever hear proclaims, "THAT IS YOUR SOUL, LOOK AT IT! LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO IT!!". With every single word and syllable the universe violently quakes and I, an atheist only 2 seconds ago, understand this to be the voice of some supreme entity, God afaik. "They're disgusting!" I'm screaming, "how do I get rid of them, please, please take them away!" I beg to this infinitely staggering power.  "YOU INVITED THEM IN AND YOU MUST BE THE ONE TO MAKE THEM LEAVE!!  YOU HAVE POLLUTED YOUR MIND AND BODY WITH SYNTHETIC DRUGS AND HAVE GIVEN THESE DEMONS THE PERFECT BREEDING GROUND TO THRIVE AND GROW!  EVERY PILL YOU TAKE YOU FEED THEM, EVERY LIE YOU TELL YOU MAKE THEM STRONGER!  YOU MUST BEG FOR FORGIVENESS IF YOU WISH TO RID YOUR SOUL OF THESE DEMONS!!"

Every word feels like a physical blow to my heart as I watch my indescribably beautiful fractal soul be constricted and devoured by these disgusting demons. I'm sobbing uncontrollably at this point, and my wife is doing her best to just hold my hand and remind me I'll be ok which is entirely fruitless.  I'm literally buried under the covers and lost in my mind, I can't even make sense of her words in the moment.

I began to confess to my wife every single sin I've made against her, all the drug abuse that I lied about, all the money I pissed away, I told her that I was a disgusting failure of a human and not worthy to occupy her physical plane.  I poured my heart out and I meant it more than I've ever meant anything.  This was my penultimate confession of my selfishness.  The whole time I'm doing this the demons slowly separate themselves from my soul and begin to leave my headspace.  They stay at the periphery if my mind's eye, alongside the God entity (only light, all encompassing, no shape) that barred my soul to me.  They watched as I, a staunch atheist, confessed my sins to some deity and my loved ones and prayed to myself and my soul for the strength to stave off the demons. 

I felt an angelic presence appear suddenly in the room (my head).  I knew that I had purged myself of these demons that represented my addictions and damaging lifestyle choices.  It wasn't an entity though, it was more like serenity made into a tangible thing I could sense and smell.  It felt amazing.  I stopped crying and I softly said, "I'm so sorry" to myself over and over as my wife tried to comfort me.  And I had meant it. I was so very sorrowful and ashamed for what I had put myself through after seeing what my life, our lives represent as a beautiful energy we can grow.  As I did this the demons and Gods left my head space, and I was alone at last. 

The time now was 10:30pm.....

For the next 5 hours I would lay in bed bedside my wife crying on and off while my mind resumed sliding around and I was unable to grasp any tangible thoughts.  All notions of reality were a joke to me, I couldn't even talk.  This didn't bother me though, I had been broken.  It was actually sort of serene watching my thoughts, my memories, my being, floating around the hyperspace in my head.  I didn't fight anything, I just accepted the ride and layed with my eyes closed until 3am, when the shroom would finally say its farewells and grant me my humanly peace.   

As I feel asleep I remembering thinking how excited I was to meet the new me the next morning. 

That was about 8 months ago now, and while the withdrawals just about made me want to die, I went cold turkey and I haven't had any drugs besides marijuana since that night.  That's not true, actually.  I got really drunk those first few nights of withdrawal.  Only way I could sleep. 

Although they are not physical I know that those snakes were real, they are not metaphorical, they live in my soul and feed off negativity.  The silver snakes live there too, but they feed off of love. I've been feeding the wrong ones for 22 years now and they did not want to die, and they had grown big and strong whilst I forced the others to live off only my happy memories; or the past if you will, leaving with me nothing more than negativity.  I wasn't producing any happy memories to feed the right ones.

I'm not one to practice any religion or anything, but I firmly believe in a higher power that lives within every living thing in our universe.  It's pure energy and it is all things and encompasses all good and evil.  The beauty in our physical being is that we are blessed with free will and we are allowed to choose for ourselves whether we live with good or evil in our hearts.  It's our choice which serpent we feed. Light and dark.  Heaven and hell.  Love and hate.  All the same thing.  These things, I believe, are the driving force in our universe, and they are tools for us to use and learn from.  They exist not just as emotions, but as actual entities that live beyond our physical realm and encompass all things.  They are 2 ends of the opposite spectrum, twins sort of (a snake eating its own tail) and all sentient life exists between. They *are* life itself.  Every emotion in the spectrum exists between love and hate, and without those two polar opposites, I could not be happy, sad, jealous, angry, or any of the numerous emotions our species is blessed with. 

I know that was really long, and I don't care if you read it or not.  I'm considering this my confessional.  I feel that it is important to expose myself so that my promised recovery will be easier by way of fear of letting anyone down, even if you are all a bunch of strangers; you're also shroomers, so I know you love me..... and I love you.

It's also ego, though.  I've always been ashamed of what I had become and hidden it from the world.  No more.  I'm finished hiding behind a wall of false security and promised eventualities, it's done nothing but slowly eat my beautiful soul, which can't grow while being buried with indiscretions. 

Thank you, if you did read it.  I mean that.  I hope this helps someone.  If even one of you takes something away from this, I will feel that much more redeemed. 

All my love, and peace for your soul

J

Exp Year: 2019	ExpID: 114627
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 37
Published: Aug 6, 2020	Views: 4,561
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : Combinations (3), Addiction & Habituation (10), Mystical Experiences (9), Entities / Beings (37), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Health Benefits (32), Small Group (2-9) (17)