Silk Road forums
Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: socalKlosk on June 18, 2012, 07:33 pm
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I write this to inform and for my own understanding.
I sourced some shrooms from Rocker about 4 months ago. I had been patiently waiting to find a time to take them. That time finally came on Saturday.
First, some background: for months I have been recovering from various medical issues. My mind has been in a deeply depressed state and my energy has been at one of the lowest ebbs I've ever experienced. In general my life and work situation have been that of loneliness and despair.
What was I hoping to get out of this experience? I tried to suppress any expectations. Good or bad, I thought I would learn something. I was not trying to "get high" or experience fun hallucinations. Mainly, this was about looking for insights and trying to resolve certain things, opening things, abandoning fear.
I understood the importance of set and setting. I was wary of taking a trip in my present state. More than anything perhaps, my mind had become so fixated on this that, regardless of outcome, it was something I needed to do to just to untie that knot.
The only opportunity to try them in a really safe environment (by myself on a large rural property) finally arrived. The weather was not great and I was in a physically and emotionally exhausted state.
I have had previous experiences with hashish with which I reached the top and managed to stay for a while, even without continued use. I didn't accomplish this alone, but had guidance. It really is true what they say about the guru appearing only when you are ready. I reached a state where sometimes I was able to observe myself sleeping all night, and at times it seemed like I could choose whenever I wanted to either stay here or go back to the light. But much of what followed those times has been a process of tumbling down the mountain and desperately trying to get back to the top either by foot or with chemical assistance, and mostly without good help or guidance. Sometimes I've forgotten about that view from the top, but more often I've been living from the memories of what it was, what I had gained, forgetting that to be there you can't be in the past, but can only be there now.
To use an analogy, it was a little like skipping to the end of a book. For some people the book is written in a language they haven't yet come to understand and the ending is very confusing, for me it was clearer, but either way now I have to go back to some earlier chapter and pickup where I left off, not completely sure how the plot will unfold. It is, however, helpful to be reminded what the end looks like from time to time.
The older I get the more I see how much the stars had to have aligned for this experience to have happened. I see so many people who have no conception of these states of being nor have even had any glimpses, or if they did, have chalked them off. It is so much easier to reach the top when you're younger and have little past to get over or be attached to. One has fewer and much weaker misconceptions which are much easier to break. Your conditioning tends to harden like concrete as you age and it's a painful and slow process to explode it or chip away.
Some of you won't understand what I'm talking about, some of you will.
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Anyway, so at around 11am I simmered 2g of finely chopped shrooms in 2 cups of water for 15m. At minute 10 I added a tea bag. I strained the concoction in a french press, and poured off the liquid into a mug then compressed the remaining muck at the bottom with a spoon to squeeze out the last liquid. I didn't add lemon juice nor did I take any ginger for stomach discomfort. I wanted to get a baseline experience (the scientific method).
I set up a comfortable chair next to a radio on the porch, which overlooks the adjacent farm fields (an idyllic view). Early that morning I had eaten a healthy breakfast. My bladder and bowels were clear. I set out a peeled orange and some chocolates by the chair and a book about Dali which I just happened to stumble on right at that moment. I had forgotten to bring the benzos I had saved for a "just in case" emergency exit. I found a classic rock station on the radio and left it on at low volume. Yesterday was playing. Then it was down the hatch. I think it took around 20 minutes for it to really start to come on. And this is where my memory becomes more than a little fuzzy. I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of body rush. I have done pure MDMA crystal twice and can compare the sense of both physical and mental euphoria associated with the come up from that. With shrooms the euphoria was there in the beginning, but not as deep or clear or energetic as with MDMA. Perhaps it was my own grogginess or perhaps shrooms have more of a drunken aspect, or maybe it was the dosage. At any rate, I didn't feel like staying there on the porch. I should note I had a dog with me. The dog reflected a lot of my feelings and never really left my side the whole time. What I can remember from my walk is fleeting. At one point I had a sense of having a single pointed awareness of an infinitesimal small size. This gave the world a very large dimension, the best way of equating this might be how you see things when you are a very small child. The paths I had walked many times on the property seemed completely new to me and vast in dimension. The feeling of natural beauty in my surroundings was deep and unobstructed. I can remember the perception of time changing. I would look at the dog, look somewhere else, and look at the dog again and he would be in a different place looking at something else and I had missed what intervened. And so it appeared the dog jumped from place to place without me noticing. I don't know if you could say this was time slowing or speeding up. No, I didn't experience a unity of all things. Or if I did, my mind was too perturbed for the memory to stick. I ended up back at the house. By this time my stomach was not doing so well. At one point I felt like I was getting nauseous. But what I really noticed was how run down I felt. I had read that however you're feeling before you trip could be magnified and this was true. My state of exhaustion now felt like death. I wasn't experiencing ego death, just a massively increased awareness of my own physical and mental state. I can remember pacing back and forth around the house saying oh, god, oh god. I felt awful, but I kept in mind that I was on shrooms and reminded myself that in a few hours this would pass. I imagine if I had taken a much higher dose then at this time things could have been really bad. I can remember sitting down at one point and seeing the speckled paint pattern on the wall morph into a paisley pattern. I looked at the wood desk in front of me and saw the wood grains moving. The patterns in a floral patterned carpet glowed with neon hues. Looking at a family photo album, at an old picture of myself, the image seemed like I was staring at somebody else.
I felt so physically bad it seemed best if I kept moving around, so the rest of the trip was spent in a very restless state. On reflection, I would say that taking the shrooms in my current state was a lot like inviting a cleaner into a very dirty house. As the house, the cleaning process was not totally a very pleasant experience. Another way of looking at this might be to say that you see yourself from an ultimate and pure view and depending on your state of being having the light shinned on you in this way can be very unpleasant, even sickening.
I don't know if it was paranoia or the little voice telling me that I should not have done this, and that to get back to the top I should try and walk and not take shortcuts, or I should find guidance, or should have done this in a better set and setting, but I became of the mind to destroy the remaining shrooms I had and also the expensive electronic scale I had used to weigh them. And so I did.
At the end I found myself in the bathroom looking in the mirror and could see in my face how spent I was. I felt like hell and my face couldn't hold it's mask up. Coming out of the stupor of the experience I realized how depressing it was to be at the property alone and in this state. I made a pot of coffee, took a shower and when I felt sobered up enough got in the car and headed home. Driving home I played some Phillip Glass piano music. This music has been about all I can stomach lately. At any rate, I cried a great deal listing to it as I could clearly reflect on the truths of the relationships I have with different family members, the things I need to do or should have done and the vast gulf between where I saw things needing to be and where they are today, and with little clear recourse on how to cover the intervening distances. I resolved to do certain things in that state even though now as I write I cannot see these truths in quite the same way.
I stopped at a rest area at one point to relieve myself. Nobody was there, but as I exiting the building an Asian family was getting out of their car. I know I looked ok at this point, but what I saw develop was the game of roles being played out between "strangers". We immediate looked away from each other as people are so want to do absent any self-awareness. The closer to home I got the more I felt like old patterns and habit energies were reasserting themselves. What might have been opened a crack started to close again. By the time I got home I was stuck in my old prison world again.
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So what did I learn?
#1, set and setting. To that end, let me be philosophical: I've read that the only real choice we have is choosing whether or not to resist. I can see the truth of this, but see that in that resistance there is the opportunity to learn something as well. As they say, the best teacher is the making of mistakes. Perhaps it's that resistance that explains why we're even here.
Without a guidance system sitting on top of a rocket can be a hell of a ride. I don't know when the right time will come to try this again. But it's clear to me that I should do a lot of house cleaning first. Overall, I think despite many unpleasant aspects the trip was ultimately beneficial. Perhaps my two experiences with MDMA might have helped me more with overcoming some day to day issues. There remained a residual opening from those experiences which lasted a little longer afterwards. Either way integrating this experience into day to day living will be difficult. There has been no afterglow.
I have one question for those who are more experienced: I've read that LSD is a much clearer, sharper experience than shrooms. I don't have a lot of peace of mind or mental calmness in my everyday life these days so I know that effected the clarity and memory of my experience on shrooms, but I am curious how people think it would contrast if I had taken LSD (which I am glad I didn't because the whole experience would have lasted 3 times as long!). Also, if anyone has any insight or advice about any of these reflections I'd appreciate that as well.
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Perfect.
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mm, very interesting read sir :) +1! have you looked into trying a high-ish dose of Ketamine or MXE? A lot of people have compared to taking these as a refreshing, insightful experience. Much like if a human had a mental 'reset' button, taking one these would be it. I haven't tried it myself, but i've heard a lot about it.
They have also been documented a lot for their anti-depressant properties. I think this would be especially MXE, but I'm not quite sure as i can't remember very well and i haven't taken ether before.
But try having a look around the forum here, there's plenty information on it and what each one can be used for :)
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Thank you for taking the time to share this with us.
I would suggest taking time to reflect on your experience and see if you can figure out what this means in the grand scheme of things. Without putting any ideas in your head, or tarnishing this experience of yours, I will say that it seems that you need a change of scenery. The sense of feeling your newly opened gate beginning to close during the trip home really says something about your current situation. If you live with parents, unfortunately there's not much you can do currently, but try to maintain a safe space away from home that lets you open up your heart and mind. Even if you don't do any drugs in this safe space, just go there whenever you need to escape. Take a good look at that mountain and try to climb it without any shortcuts, and don't give up.
sdesu