How I Met Myself

It was the first time I had ever taken what Terrence McKenna had called a heroic dose. Five dried grams of premium psilocybin mushrooms. I was not prepared.

It was a late summer Saturday night, I had awoken late in the day and decided to take them on a nearly empty stomach. I was also thinking how much fun they would make the ongoing party at my neighbor's house. What I didn't know then, social interaction on five dried grams is one of the more difficult things you can do trippin' balls.

Now, I was familiar with psychedelics on a very much smaller scale, and had done about a solid twelve minutes of Internet research before deciding I wanted to push the boundaries a little bit. I procured what my guy referred to as 'Jedi mind fucks,' what apparently are an extremely potent strain of psychedelic mushroom.

So, right before heading next door to party it up, I shoveled the whole bag in my mouth and started chewing. Every chew making my gag reflex go off like a cat having a hair ball, and trying to wash down chewed bits with a glass of water. The taste wasn't the worst, but definitely not high on my list of flavors I might enjoy. After choking them all down I immediately lit a cigarette, experiencing a little traumatization and buyer's remorse.

I headed next door, where my neighbors had a game of cards going, blunts and bottles, and a plate of cocaine being passed around the table. I decided to announce to everyone what I had just done, just in case I had to leave suddenly or started acting weird. I also decided not to partake in any of the other party favors going around, attempting to save some sense of a pure psychedelic experience.

It was a slow roll. About fifteen minutes in, I felt like I had smoked a blunt to the face, and at the same time ate way too much bad Chinese buffet. My stomach was starting to churn, or what I thought was my stomach. A little self-examination concluded the tight ball of discomfort was a little further down, almost right below my belly button.

My vision started getting wavy, my thoughts were racing but somehow well put-together and confusing as fuck at the same time. My ability to speak seemed a lot harder to accomplish. My motor movements became worse than a drunken sailor's. It took everything I had to announce I was going home, and it was very difficult to walk the twenty feet back to my front porch.

I made it to my couch and mustered all of the reality I could to find a comfy pillow, blanket, phone charger, and turn on some tunes. A YouTube video of the band Tool's Lateralus album. I laid back as if completely exhausted, trying to get my feet covered with the small blanket I had. As I started flowing my current mentality with the music, the now pulsing-in-and-out of waves in my vision were way more intense. The ball of tightness in my abdomen was now accompanied by a mild numbness of my whole body. I had no aches or pains or even much discomfort beyond the ball. I started closing my eyes to find extremely bright images of the artwork from the music video now in full animation, bright oranges, purples and blues making up the imagery.

I started to breathe super fully and calmly, only opening my eyes to look at the strength of the waves and also to stare at my broken wall clock that seemed to be working all of a sudden.

The intensity kept climbing. What started as waves of trippyness in ten or fifteen minutes intervals was now in super intense waves three to five minutes apart. I was extremely comfortable in this state. I had absolutely no worries, even when my thought patterns were irrationally beating myself up for bad behavior or poor choices I had made. Then about forty five minutes in, the progressive waves turned into a complete body orgasm, stemming from the tight ball of anxiety. Tears ran down my face, I couldn't open my eyes, and all I could see was a super bright white space outlined with blue, but not with shape or form. I couldn't sense reality itself at all. My only thoughts were about how this is what pure love felt like, and how I am not Les Fleming the human, but a transcendental being of light. That God was real, but not in the classic sense, more in the sense that we are God, everything is God, that we are all the same consciousness. I felt an absolute connection to everything that existed, even far beyond what I knew to exist in my reality.

For what I estimated as about eight straight hours of this immersed psychedelic spiritual Awakening, I paused only once to restart the music. Riding it like a mental surf board slowly back to reality. I was beginning to come out of it, slightly sad the rollercoaster ride was almost over. I was able to move again, able to open my eyes for longer periods of time. The tight ball was completely gone, left with a satisfactory emptiness and incredible munchies.

There was a knock on the door. I got up and opened it to find one of my roommate's homies stopping by with a huge pizza to share. The munchie call had been answered. I started stuffing my face of what, ironically I thought, was a ham and mushroom slice. In between bites telling the story of what I had just gone through, in the best words I could muster.

This was the most profound experience I have ever had. A complete existence reboot. It changed me in ways I now know put me down a path of compassion and wisdom, patience and comprehension. I highly recommend it.