DOSE: T+ 0:00	15 mg	oral	2C-I	(capsule)
T+ 4:30		smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)
T+ 6:00		oral	Mushrooms	(fresh)

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

Preamble

The weekend was born out of an invitation from a friend R for H and myself to visit his house in Maine, where intentionally vague plans of “hiking and fun” were promised. H and I drive up to his place in Bar Harbor late on a Thursday night, and discover with pleasant surprise that he has virtually unlimited access to mushrooms, and offers us as much as we can eat. Deciding that it was late and we should probably save them for tomorrow, we smoke some cannabis and retire to bed.

We awake the following morning anticipating a full psychedelic day - our plans are to take 15mg of 2C-I and go on a hike, then as we are coming down crossfade this high into a mushroom trip for the evening. I'm slightly nervous about the quantity of psychedelics we're scheduled to consume (I usually like to space out my experiences), but the day is just too perfect for anything less than deep psychonautical adventures. This will be the highest I've tried 2C-I, and I haven't had a strong mushroom trip in several years. We leave to go hiking from R's house shortly after noon on a brisk but sunny November day. It is the coldest day of the year so far, and there is ice everywhere. We enter a vast system of abandoned and marginally-used trails that R has been exploring thoroughly over the past summer and begin climbing the southern flank of Mt Cadillac, the highest peak on the Island (1528 feet).

2C-I

12:45pm
T+0:00 As soon as we get some elevation, we all down 15mg of 2C-I in gelcaps during a short rest while we look out onto hills and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. It is beautiful to see the tranquil ocean in the distance from the side of a mountain, and since the ridgeline we are on is largely devoid of view-obscuring trees, the views from the trail are without exception breathtaking (with or without drugs).

T+1:00 First alerts. My visual field seems sharper, brighter. I notice intricate patterns in the lichen growing on the rocks, and everything seems almost more ‘present’ than it would ordinarily be. We carefully skirt commonly used trails opting instead for the unmarked ones or just straight-out bushwhacking. There is a thrill of exploration and discovery that I feel the drug state accentuated.

T+2:00 By this time I am at a ++ and feel a delightful euphoria radiating through my body centered on my heart/lung area. There is a drifty feeling almost as if my boots aren't actually touching the rocks but are instead floating along on a half inch of air. The world remains sharp and intense but without any outright visuals. We finish our ascent of the mountain and meet the auto road which also travels to the summit. We are dismayed that such a beautiful mountain could be allowed to be disgraced with such an unsightly tourist center, but I can also understand that this is the only way for older or less physically fit people to enjoy the mountain (but I still find it ugly). We quickly leave.

'Drugs have the right to parents'

T+3:00 We make our way down the other side of the mountain on a steep and rocky path that leads to a deep notch lined on either side by cliffs. Mental focus during the looking-for-places-to-put-my-feet descent is intense and lucid, and my mind is starting to be loosened of its reigns and wanders free with super-ordinary thoughts patterns. I have plenty of energy (physical and mental), and I am free to do with it as I choose. Looking down on the notch with the setting sun behind us illuminating the cliffs on the opposite side with a ruddy glow was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and we scramble down at a relaxed pace voluntarily interrupted by many breaks spent playing around on rocks like 5-year olds or just admiring the view.

'Don't spill me'

T+3:30 This is the peak of the 2C-I experience. We pause for 20 minutes or so by a rapidly flowing stream at the bottom of the notch to talk and relate impressions. There is much laughter and conversation runs the gamut between laughing and storytelling to deep and introspective musings. When I meditate for a few minutes with the sound of running water all around me, the auditory experience overwhelms me to the point where I feel my mind meld with the water. At that moment I exist only as a stream flowing with the force of gravity and playfully bouncing around rocks and fallen branches - and this feeling of connection to that which is not ordinarily thought of as ‘me’ is transcendent. But I am in complete control; I can mentally exit the stream anytime I want and focus on something else. My mind is simply my tool.

Flexibility - One thing I really love about 2C-I is how gentle and malleable it is .. its beauty is in its capability to be used in any number of situations due to the fact that it doesn't seem to affect the parts of the brain that cause detachment from the outside world (at the doses I've tried at least). It is lucid, and not pushy at all. I am awestruck at the divine beauty present in everything all around me, and colors and shapes are perceived with such intensity that I have to make a conscious effort to look at the trail in front of me and not the oddly mishapen rocks around me. A marginally annoying side effect is a distinct metallic taste in my mouth, as well as copious salivation (which I experience on all phenethylamines I've tried).

T+4:00 We hurry back to R's house to beat out the rapidly setting sun. Walking quickly down a narrow trail with tall trees all around me under a darkening sky is a surreal experience. I feel like I am being rocketed down some kind of tunnel, and soft metallic visuals of white, blue, and purple replace the details of the blurred forest.

The Crossfade

T+4:30 We arrive home just as the sun’s light is draining towards the western horizon, and we feel the effects of the 2C-I begin to wane. Cannabis is smoked, showers are taken, and a light dinner is consumed as we relax in the lull between journeys.

Mushrooms

6:45pm
T+6:00
T+0:00 At his point I am reasonably down from the 2C-I, although I certainly feel aftereffects and a general 'psychedelic' mindstate. This, we feel, will be a great launching pad for a high dose mushroom trip. We divide up some fresh mushrooms R recently acquired and eat them while standing around a table. Being fresh, it is difficult to estimate how much we eat, but R estimates it would be equivalent to about 4-5g dried. The taste and texture of fresh mushrooms is, in my opinion, far superior than dried mushrooms, and they are actually quite delicious.

T+0:30 I feel the psilocybin reach my brain within 20 minutes. I am already feeling somewhat psychedelic, and the mushrooms make themselves apparent in the peripheries of my consciousness - in a characteristic stomach energy, in the way objects feel in my hands, and in the circuitous paths my thoughts travel. These effects gradually seep through my awareness and soon come to dominate my experience. We sit on a couch and begin watching a DVD audio/visual fractal animation program called AV3x. It is psychedelic and relaxing, and sets a peaceful mindstate for the rest of the trip.

T+1:00 At one hour I find, despite the high dose, that I am not quite where I want to be (most likely tolerance from the 2C-I is playing a role). I had psyched myself up for a strong trip and I want to see it through. We smoke some high-grade cannabis in the hope that it will give the mushrooms a boost, which it definitely does. The walls and ceiling are covered in colorful ‘light-on-a-bubble’-type fractal patterns that gently move and breathe. As R and H continue to watch the animation program, I retreat to a dark corner next to the heater and enter my brain. The heater is radiating a warmth that flows all through my body and infuses every cell with serenity. I try to shut out all sensory data and meditate on my experience. The inside of my eyelids are absolutely brimming with complex, colorful, and vibrantly dynamic visuals – the kind that look like a pail of writhing psychedelically multicolored snakes. I am amazed at how dense my visual field is ... anywhere my attention settles I see in fascinating detail. Mushrooms have an amazing ability for me to exteriorize my imagination, and I am treated with a rich animation of my visual expectations.

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about”

T+1:30 I am peaking and I desire something else than the pleasantly relaxing animation that has been dominating our experience. We put on the new Broken Social Scene album and enter the thick of the trip. Comments are occasional and almost without exception absolutely hilarious, but for the most part we are all tripping too hard for meaningful interaction. Thoughts are going a mile a minute, so that I have trouble keeping with one idea for any length of time. Whenever I hear anybody say anything (myself included) - I have no idea who said it. There are so many intervening concepts that go through my head between hearing the words and comprehending their meaning that I can't tell who's consciousness it originally belonged to. Words are simply in the air, the product of our collective trip and not attached to any one ego. Any kind of preconception I had about my friends or my surroundings is obliterated, and I float around the room as pure consciousness, barely contained in the body I used to call home. My soul is splayed out over the woven cotton rug in the middle of the room and my body dances along behind not quite sure what it should be doing.

T+3:00 I put on a live moe. set and continue to lounge about, dance around the room, look at pictures, or attempt to verbally convey concepts we are experiencing. None of us could be considered to be 'coherent' in any way, and we'd all much prefer to laugh in shared appreciation of anyone's conversation than to actually try to decipher its meaning and respond. Typical of my mushroom experiences, there is much confusion in my thought processes – I feel like I should be understanding what was going on but I am simply not able. Contrary to some previous experiences, however, I am perfectly content to just drift about aimlessly. There is a satisfaction in not having to pay attention and being given the freedom to simply BE. Cannabis is smoked frequently as a grounding element, but I don't think I particularly got 'high'.

'You can't handle my infinite nature can you?'
T+5:00 We make an alcoholic apple cider drink and sit down to watch 'I Heart Huckabees' as the intensity of the mushroom trip relaxes some. Concentration on the movie is easy enough and its ocassionally-deep ideas are fun to play around with in my mind.

T+7:00 Sleep is attempted, and since I am exhausted from the day’s events, it is relatively easy.

Postamble

I wake up at 11:30 AM (T+16) feeling great, but also quite spaced out. For the rest of the day, I am in a calm drifty headspace where nothing is really all that important and concentration on any thing in particular is difficult. The world appears more like a moving photograph that I am looking at as opposed to a reality that I am experiencing. However, I am completely at peace and feel psychically and spiritually cleansed ... I am a blank slate. This state continues for several beautiful days before blending into background consciousness.

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 48244
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 1, 2005	Views: 23,754
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