bebeto
10-11-2002, 04:21 PM
I've only done psilocybin mushrooms about 15 times, and I can't attest to some of the other substances, but Daniel's comments are mostly dead-on from what I remember.
The "I'm trapped in a time loop" feeling. Oh, yes. Staring at the clock on one trip. "That clock isn't moving!" Or "It was 3:20 five minutes ago! It can't be 3:20 still!"
The universe is one big program, and I'm just a subroutine in it. I would usually get the dark nihilistic mechanistic vibe on the way up.
Eternal return. I'm a little ashamed to tell this story: I was listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Never Going Back Again" off Rumours. The joke here is that we _can_ go back again whenever we want. Anywhere, anytime. Past lives, etc. I wanted so bad to tell Lindsay Buckingham that I was on to him and his secret messages.
The closed-eye imagery. Huge alien vistas. Vast cities on unknown seas.
The alien presence looking down on us puny humans. The feeling that I was not welcome there. I remember shouting "Fuck you" in my mind over and over again to this insect-like vibe. That only happened on one trip thankfully.
Contact with departed relatives: I saw my mother's face in my wife's for around ten minutes, and I received non-verbal communication from her eyes and telepathically I guess you would say, that she still existed and would always love me. What a beautiful moment. What catharsis! I cried like a baby. I didn't realize how much I missed my mother. I also saw my wife's ancestors in her face on another trip. My wife is Latin American, so I saw European, African, South American Indians, all pass by. Amazing. Her hair actually changed accordingly.
The immediate gnosis. Everything is just the way it should be. Everything happens now. It's all good. I want to say it was God telling me that. That's what I thought at the time. A Philip K. Dick moment. "Of course!" or "YES!" I must've said that a zillion times on my enlightened trips. This would usually come right after the peak of the trip. A wonderful time.
The mushroom spirit. This "being" talked in Spanish, and I understood him perfectly. He told me that the strain I was taking was of Mexican descent, and he and his coworkers were glad to see me and they were there to help. "Them's good people!" Very friendly.
Things not really mentioned in the book, or mentioned slightly:
Empathic phenomena: I could not stand to hear my wife say anything bad about anyone. It physically made me ill. We were walking down the street and I had to tell her to stop before I keeled over.
Visual effects: Specifically, my color palette would drop to 256 from Millions, to use a computer analogy, and my display resolution would drop too. I would actually see my dog as a mosaic of pixels. Big square ones. So everything was posterized. My wife's skin would go from an even flesh tone to a topographical map of red and yellow shades. I remember thinking to myself, this is how an artist sees the world! I could never read the clock at the peak. The lettering on my CD cases was a jumble.
Sticking with the computer analogy, I think the psilocybin reorders the cortical processes. It does a "nice" on the brain. For those of you who've never used Unix, here's the definition, straight from the man page:
nice - execute a utility with an altered scheduling priority
So the external visual machinery is put on the back burner to simmer as it were, while the brain's processing power is concentrated on thinking. Overclocking, maybe? It doesn't seem to effect the look of the closed eye visuals.
Mirrors: Looking in a mirror while tripping makes me no longer wonder why mirrors are considered magical portals. There's something worth exploring there. I remember one episode where I just knew I could leave this reality and step into another one via a full length mirror on our bathroom door. It was strangely tempting, and the only thing that kept
me back was my love for my wife, and the desire to live a whole lifetime with her. There's a book by Raymond Moody, the author of Life After Life, called Reunions, that goes into detail about mirrors as a gateway or window.
Contact high phenomena : My wife's pupils always dilated also even though she never partook of los hongos with me. And my dog would always get trippy. Very playful.
The observer: There's a part of me, that is always analyzing what's going on, judging. The last time I smoked marijuana I couldn't stand it. Shut the hell up already! With psilocybin, I seem to get to shut that guy down, and see the world like a child. One time however, I was still aware that the observer was watching me, and I yelled out in my mind, "who's watching me?" and immediately my trip ended. I mean immediately. I was completely sober. The trip came back about five minutes later, but I had the feeling that I touched on something I wasn't supposed to.
The "I'm trapped in a time loop" feeling. Oh, yes. Staring at the clock on one trip. "That clock isn't moving!" Or "It was 3:20 five minutes ago! It can't be 3:20 still!"
The universe is one big program, and I'm just a subroutine in it. I would usually get the dark nihilistic mechanistic vibe on the way up.
Eternal return. I'm a little ashamed to tell this story: I was listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Never Going Back Again" off Rumours. The joke here is that we _can_ go back again whenever we want. Anywhere, anytime. Past lives, etc. I wanted so bad to tell Lindsay Buckingham that I was on to him and his secret messages.
The closed-eye imagery. Huge alien vistas. Vast cities on unknown seas.
The alien presence looking down on us puny humans. The feeling that I was not welcome there. I remember shouting "Fuck you" in my mind over and over again to this insect-like vibe. That only happened on one trip thankfully.
Contact with departed relatives: I saw my mother's face in my wife's for around ten minutes, and I received non-verbal communication from her eyes and telepathically I guess you would say, that she still existed and would always love me. What a beautiful moment. What catharsis! I cried like a baby. I didn't realize how much I missed my mother. I also saw my wife's ancestors in her face on another trip. My wife is Latin American, so I saw European, African, South American Indians, all pass by. Amazing. Her hair actually changed accordingly.
The immediate gnosis. Everything is just the way it should be. Everything happens now. It's all good. I want to say it was God telling me that. That's what I thought at the time. A Philip K. Dick moment. "Of course!" or "YES!" I must've said that a zillion times on my enlightened trips. This would usually come right after the peak of the trip. A wonderful time.
The mushroom spirit. This "being" talked in Spanish, and I understood him perfectly. He told me that the strain I was taking was of Mexican descent, and he and his coworkers were glad to see me and they were there to help. "Them's good people!" Very friendly.
Things not really mentioned in the book, or mentioned slightly:
Empathic phenomena: I could not stand to hear my wife say anything bad about anyone. It physically made me ill. We were walking down the street and I had to tell her to stop before I keeled over.
Visual effects: Specifically, my color palette would drop to 256 from Millions, to use a computer analogy, and my display resolution would drop too. I would actually see my dog as a mosaic of pixels. Big square ones. So everything was posterized. My wife's skin would go from an even flesh tone to a topographical map of red and yellow shades. I remember thinking to myself, this is how an artist sees the world! I could never read the clock at the peak. The lettering on my CD cases was a jumble.
Sticking with the computer analogy, I think the psilocybin reorders the cortical processes. It does a "nice" on the brain. For those of you who've never used Unix, here's the definition, straight from the man page:
nice - execute a utility with an altered scheduling priority
So the external visual machinery is put on the back burner to simmer as it were, while the brain's processing power is concentrated on thinking. Overclocking, maybe? It doesn't seem to effect the look of the closed eye visuals.
Mirrors: Looking in a mirror while tripping makes me no longer wonder why mirrors are considered magical portals. There's something worth exploring there. I remember one episode where I just knew I could leave this reality and step into another one via a full length mirror on our bathroom door. It was strangely tempting, and the only thing that kept
me back was my love for my wife, and the desire to live a whole lifetime with her. There's a book by Raymond Moody, the author of Life After Life, called Reunions, that goes into detail about mirrors as a gateway or window.
Contact high phenomena : My wife's pupils always dilated also even though she never partook of los hongos with me. And my dog would always get trippy. Very playful.
The observer: There's a part of me, that is always analyzing what's going on, judging. The last time I smoked marijuana I couldn't stand it. Shut the hell up already! With psilocybin, I seem to get to shut that guy down, and see the world like a child. One time however, I was still aware that the observer was watching me, and I yelled out in my mind, "who's watching me?" and immediately my trip ended. I mean immediately. I was completely sober. The trip came back about five minutes later, but I had the feeling that I touched on something I wasn't supposed to.