Cold Blooded Skeptical Atheist. 4 Grams. First Time.

[FONT=&quot]I had thought about it for a long while, and decided to buy some magic mushrooms. I had done them before with friends to zero effect, and I was really interested in the full-on experience. I was tired of reading trip reports full of all that hippie chakra "we're all psychic interconnected God's child beings" bullshit, and was really interested in how I'd interpret the experience as a cold blooded skeptical atheist.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I decided to take 4 grams. A high dose said Erowid. For amy first time I wanted to go big for the absolute full effect that shrooms had to offer. I had the day off and was alone, so it didn't really matter how messed up I was. I was comfortable with whatever effects the shrooms were about to give me, both positive and negative. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I prepared it by putting all 4 grams into a mug and pouring boiling water over it. I let it steep for 10 minutes.[/FONT]



[FONT=&quot]1:59: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Ingestion. Tastes like mushroom tea. I don't really understand why people find it so icky.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2:10: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Already starting to feel a little effect. Much more relaxed than normal. I think this will be a pretty hard trip![/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:16:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Yup. Things are definitely going on. Lightheaded, Dizziness.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:17:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Steeping my second cup from the same batch.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:22: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Going to pass on the second cup. This is by far enough.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Dizziness increasing. Time dilation. Slight nausea. I really don't wanna stand or be walking around.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:24:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] The sound of my computer humming and my fridge buzzing is getting more and more noticeable. Hands are sweating more than usual, and they're also slightly trembling. My mind racing a bit.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:29[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: Short term memory loss. (I suppose) I forgot that I was steeping a second cup of mushroom tea.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:36[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: I can't help but laugh at the double chin of a fat pigeon perched outside my window. I laugh just thinking about it.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:41:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] There are definite ups and downs. The effects will be strong (so far just dizziness and buzzing however) for a while and then subside. Judging how long these highs and lows are lasting is difficult because I'm losing the ability to perceive of the passage of time.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:46:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Downing the second cup.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2:57:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] The effects have stayed pretty constant, with slight visual distortions when peaking during the ups and downs.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The visual distortions are a sort of breathing effect (very much like this optical illusion)


(such a great album)

but the effect is everywhere that I look. The walls, the computer screen, the floor...[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]As I'm writing this, the text seems to go italic, blur slightly and then comes into focus. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
3:02:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Going to go chill out on the couch a bit and enjoy the effects.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:05[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: Just before heading off to the TV I began to notice the reflections of [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]my CDs on the wall. Which then led me to look at the wall itself, and notice the individual strokes which painted the wall. I could easily just sit and stare the wall and be wonderfully entertained but I think I'd rather catch the day's news.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:09[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: Watching CNN while snacking on the stems and caps. OH SHIT. CNN just announced that a missile has hit a hideout in Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden is believed to have been hiding![/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:17[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: Mom called my cell phone and I picked up the call. She wanted to find a furnace company that she's used before. And it took me a while because I really couldn't concentrate, but I managed to google the one she wanted. I was asking rapid-fire questions: 'Where are you? What are you doing? Why can't you google this?' At one point she asked 'Is this 20 questions?' and I caught myself and stopped. I think I'll just turn off my phone in order to prevent future incident. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:28[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: Definite short term memory loss. Lots of pretty visual distortions. Finished eating all the caps and stems. Mind is racing and my judgement is, I assume, heavily impaired. I think I'll just chill out for a while and listen to some good music.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:30[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Post-Experience Note: I was posting my experience live as it happened onto a message board. Everything above is pretty much exactly as I had posted it. At this time, however, I became so paranoid that one of the members of the message board would worry about me and call an ambulance that I skipped to notepad and lied on the message board about the effects going away. Everything past this point is based on a 3,300 word stream of consciousness that I wrote during the peak of the trip. If you see quotes around a paragraph, it’s a direct quote from the document.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Experiencing quite a bit of paranoia and my mind is racing quite a bit. My paranoia is based on the following train of thought: There are about 15 people all paying attention to my posts. I am going to begin posting nonsense in a few minutes. They’re going to worry and call an ambulance. I need to stop posting on the Internet. It was a stupid idea.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:35: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I tell the message board that the the experience was quite cliché[/FONT][FONT=&quot] and I wasn’t tripping too hard, while in reality I was reaching its peak. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:40: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"It is difficult to maintain a single thought without becoming overwhelimingly distracted. okay so wow is it difficult to document. I'm going to go urinate now. "[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:42: "[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Just urinated. Seemed to go okay. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I'm tring to find a literary way of 'Summing the Entire Picture Up' but it's quite difficult. "[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3:44: [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Here’s a snippet from my stream of consciousness, where you can basically see my thoughts being completely disorganized. I can’t concentrate on anything anymore:

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]“yup, each time it's [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]ah shit[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]|[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]|[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]|[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Okay. Here we go. A small moment of clarity.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Nope. Gone again.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Did I post that yet?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Going to hit post.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Abandonment of all pretense.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]ahhhhhhhhhhhfuck cliches[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This is a keeper.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Definitely not going [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Mind is racing. This is what it is.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]What the hell does that mean?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Pretty much every thought in my head right now doesn't make a whole lot of sense. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Definitely gotta go through this post-experience to see whether or not it's a [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Wow. yup. ugh. Trying to avoid all these cliches about thoughts [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Can I trust [Name Removed]?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I don't know[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]who the hell is [Name Removed][/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]wow. god damn. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Now you're just documenting for yourself. No more mesage boards. No more thinking of posting this anywhere on the Internet. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]shit I'm going to throw up[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]nope, now I'm okay. Just spent a little while on the floor.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]4:00[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: The nausea only lasted about five minutes, and I never threw up. At this point I could barely manage a single rational thought. I was experiencing ego loss. The more thoughts that I couldn’t focus on, couldn’t recall, the less of a ‘person’ I became. I began to lose all pretences. Truth, honesty and interconnectedness became strong themes throughout the trip from this point onwards. Unfortunately, I was experiencing intense paranoia. I was expecting it, and the paranoia didn’t make me freak out, but it still made the experience uncomfortable. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I did not experience the feeling of interconnectedness in a religious or spiritual sense, but as my ego quickly dwindled out of existence, I realized that there was no difference between myself, everyone else, and the rest of the universe. Oh geez, I thought, all those stupid clichés I was trying to avoid were probably the best way to describe the experience.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]4:30[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: I was obsessing over a couple people from the message board. One of them called me a ‘newbie’ and said that doing shrooms alone is pointless and should be done with friends at a concert or similar venue. The other disagreed with her. I felt connected to both of them-- not connected in any supernatural way, but I was certain that I had deep insight into the way they thought, and what they were thinking. I also believed they knew exactly what I was going through right now and were the only ones who understood what was going on. Even though I wasn’t communicating with them at all, I was torn between which of them to trust. The “responsible” one who called me a newbie, or the one who I assumed was a total hippie and really knew what was happening to me right now.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“I am most certainly on shrooms. Existing entirely in my own mind. Temporary insanity. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I guess I should listen to some good music[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]newbie, newbie, newbie[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]That's what I am. New to this entire experience. To this wonderful [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]fucking[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]nugget[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]of[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]a[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]text[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]file[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I think you and [Person A] should be friends. Why you gotta not like eachother?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Perhaps I'll propose to give it to [Person A].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This is our secret, [Person B].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Ours alone.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Huh[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]So everything breaks down, doesn't it [Person B]?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Everything, everything, everything. Breaks down.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Post experience. Go through ALL OF THIS JUMBLED MESS afterwards and make an informed decision as to whether give it to [Person B] or not.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]going to go to bed and just enjoy.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Hopefully my roommate doesn't find me all mumbling mad. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Is everyone aware that I'm doing drugs right now? I don't really know.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I should probably just go to bed.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]breaks[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]down[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]breaks[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]down[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]everything[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]every last concept I ever had[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]breaks down[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]into this[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]text file.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]5:15: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I had gotten over the paranoia somewhat and began to really enjoy the loss of ego. I wanted to go and sit down and just listen to the sounds coming from outside, but I was also terribly excited and wouldn’t be able to concentrate enough on doing any one thing. I could only sit in the darkness of my bedroom and listen to the sound of the wind blowing and chimes dingling for maybe 10 minutes. I began to back from my bed to my computer room in revelation and glee. Knowledge, insight, the nature of Truth. I had the entire universe figured out and all the answers were in my head. How ironic that something so sought after by religious followers over their entire lifetime can be easily achieved by drinking a cup of mushroom tea. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I believed that everyone must try this experience at least once in their lifetime. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“everything breaks down”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]5:45:[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] In the stream of consciousness I begin to describe all the relationships I had with most of my friends, how I wish they would’ve been stronger, how I wish I could be honest with them always and that I would be always honest with them in the future.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]6:10[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]: “p.s. heading to bed. Wish I had some Animal Collective playing.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]OH SHIT I HAVE AN IPOD. “[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]6:20: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]“hoo boy, coming down now. What a trip, but you only need to do it once to understand it. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Nope, not heading to bed. Coming down. MAN. WHAT A DAY! Gonna go shower because I feel dirty. (I never showered that morning)[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Short term memory returning. It's like the plane is landing on an air strip.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]oh MAN! That was a wild ride. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Hmm, I should've done my laundry today. Would've been much more convenient.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Turned on my phone at 6:40 PM. No wireless voice messages. Good.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I think this trip is over so I think I'll end it here. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Thank you![/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]ps 6:42 PM. “[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]7:12[/FONT][FONT=&quot]: “Mind is still racing a bit and I'm pretty sure my judgement is impaired. I didn't shower, I didn't go to bed (as I thought it'd be a waste of time)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I am going to write a full write-up of the experience once I am completely down. It'll be glorious. “[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]7:30: [/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I shower. It’s the best shower of my life. I was beaming smilie in glee while washing my toes. It felt as if I had been reborn. I had a new philosophy, a new way of looking at life. I was going to interact with people differently. I was going to be a completely honest and open person. I knew what those hippies felt and thought. I finally got them.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]9:00[/FONT][FONT=&quot]: “Really wish the experience could've been shared with people here with me, but being completely alone has its benefits. Friends not laughing at you when you say things completely indescernible to them is one of them.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]For the rest of the night I held philosophical conversations with people over the Internet. Talking about being honest and Truth and why we couldn’t all just be friends and not judge each other. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]It was difficult to get to sleep. I toss and turned for a good couple hours, but finally managed to get to sleep at about 6 AM. 14 hours after I began the trip.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The day after there was no noticeable side effects. I felt normal. While I remembered what revelations I had which seemed quite important the day before, they lost much of their meaning. I was satisfied with the trip, and it gave me some insight into what people are talking about when they say they've had a religious experience. I wouldn’t say it changed the way I think very much, but it did leave me with a somewhat renewed sense of self-confidence. I still feel like I am more open and relaxed—it’s easier to talk to people, three days after the trip. I hope it’s permanent.[/FONT]

 

great report..

 

Good report. Doesn't quite sound like ego death, but maybe a really decent shroom trip. Shrooms go MUCH more deeper then that....hundreds times deeper.

 

Yeah that was quite a light shrooms trip, but glad you enjoyed it. I went into psychedelics quite a militant atheist super-intellectual, and came out realizing that that mentality/attitude is only a small subset of a much greater mentality/attitude that I can embrace, which fulfills me much more.

I found out I can have my cake and eat it too!

So from one atheist to another, god bless you.

 

Yeah, I avoided 'ego death' and just said 'loss.' I'm sure the rabbit hole goes deeper but I don't wanna end up covered in lagomorphic turds.

If I had any spiritual or religious beliefs, the experience would've been steeped in religious and spiritual imagery which reads like a much more involved trip than what I wrote. I was also really distracted by the Internet and recording my thoughts. I think the mindset I was in was big factor in experiencing a lighter trip with that dose of mushrooms.

 

Yeah don't record your thoughts next time, just double your dose, put your favorite psychedelic music on and enjoy the most educational few hours of your life

 

I disagree that you only need to experience it once to understand it. The religious seekers have been using mushrooms, and other psychedelics, since the beginning of history. Almost all religions are connected to psychedelic use. It still can take a lifetime to fully grok it.

You're more dogmatic in your skepticism than a lot of people are in their faith. I suggest letting go of what you think and what you believe, and trying to experience things without judgment or documentation. Don't deny your experiences to support your opinions. Let go of Shoulds and Shouldn'ts. Give yourself a few hours to be as objective and empty as possible. I don't mean this as an insult, but I think you have a lot more ego than you're aware of. I feel like you think you already know, so you're not really listening. I was that way for a lot longer than I realized, and I'm sure I still am. Humility is one of the most important qualities to have if you're going to be playing with psychedelics.

 

I aint readin all that shit lol

 

oh man exactly prismatism, exactly

 

You hit it square on the head, prismatism. I've really just began realizing how much of our culture and history was influenced by the use of psychedelic drugs. It's like learning a new word or phrase and then seeing its use everywhere when you've never noticed it at all before.

I am terribly new to your philosophy and am naive. I've convinced myself that I have deeper insight than most people. You're right, I can't think that way. I am just as flawed and biased as everyone else.

I'm a little terrified of thinking this way though. It seems that every time I wanna communicate this line of thought with someone, it'll only make them judge me as a druggie crazy person and will dismiss it outright.

I suppose, if you really wanna play the game and appear to be 'just like everyone else', you have to just keep it a secret.

 

Well, you go through a phase where you may alienate people. But in the end, you wind up being able to connect to them in a more genuine way than ever before, because you really understand where they're coming from, and love them for it. You'll still come across as a little weird, but in a buddha/mad scientist kind of way. Eventually everything you do communicates it, and you can meet people at whatever level they're at. But it does take a lot of bravery, and it is a hard path.

MAJOR props, though. Seriously.

I think debating theism and atheism is missing the point. Something is only supernatural when we don't understand it. If there's a divine order (or a divine disorder) to things, wouldn't it still just be a part of nature? Darwinism was created as a direct response to a deism that thought of God as some guy in the clouds controlling everything; it was an extreme in the opposite direction. Every idea is a product of it's time... our own experience is the closest we can get to truth. No one has a monopoly on it.

If you make yourself small enough, you can get through the keyhole and into the garden .

 

Why would you want to be like everyone else?

You have this amazing, shining new knowledge, don't hide it like a dirty secret. Wear it on the tip of your nose :cheers2:

 

great trip report im glad you enjoyed it. shrooms are my favorite!

 

Exactly! Our culture's heavily influenced by psychedelics. Hell, even Steve Jobs said taking acid was one of the most important experiences in his life. Yet our society has a REALLY warped perception of what these substances actually do. I don't think it's a coincidence that things have been changing at a faster and faster rate since the psychedelic revolution in the sixties. Mass mind expansion is bound to have some sort of global ripple effect. Only in the last forty years it's been forgotten, and the importance of that brief period of unrest has been downplayed. Even though we still love the music that came out of it. And nothings been the same since. As for the whole insight thing... Who knows if the people you encounter on the streets are acquainted with their own spiraling fractal-y psyches. I tend to assume most of them aren't, and instead are caught up in what they assume to be a "fixed reality" haha. So instead of sounding like a drug crazed loony, I research the hell out of this stuff. And when I talk about it to people, I try to make it sound as convincing as I can! Cause I really believe in this stuff. And I think that any substance that can evoke temporary insanity/mystical experience in an atheist (and I attest to that), is definitely worth telling people about!

 

I pimp him out to absolutely everyone, but I think you need to marinate your brain in some of Terence McKenna's work. He talks about machine elves, the fractal nature of reality, aliens, shamanism, the transcendental object at the end of time, the idea that human evolution was literally caused by psychedelic use and that mushrooms came to the planet from space... and he's one of the biggest skeptics of our time. The truth is wilder than you can possibly imagine.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" - William Shakespeare, in Hamlet

Also, a quick and obvious point... all a psychedelic is is food. How long have you ever gone without eating some kind of food? Especially a plant food? What we eat influences our consciousness CONSTANTLY. We tend to eat the same things over and over (in different forms, but essentially the same ingredients), so we don't perceive our normal consciousness as anything particularly psychedelic. But even eating the native food of a different culture can change your consciousness in a near psychedelic way. Not eating for a few days is a psychedelic experience, not because you're starving (you're not) but because you're getting closer to your actual baseline. What we put in our bodies tells our consciousness a story. Adding in something alien, something close to nature and basically unaltered by time and our own influence, will likely tell us a story we've never heard before.

Also, Robert Anton Wilson, Rupert Sheldrake, Ram Dass, Fred Alan Wolf, Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner... all very interesting and psychedelic people, and all (I believe, but may be wrong) began as "cold blooded skeptical atheists". Check out at least one video of each on youtube.

 

terence mckenna imo is your one stop shop for psychedelic education. there is just no better speaker on the subject, runners up are leary and co.

 

Great report DiscFour!
Psychedelics definitely opened up my mind as well to new and different ideas regarding my consciousness and the world around me. I started out as a 'cold blooded atheist' as well which got cracked by weed and then fully shattered by hallucinogens.

But I don't have all the answers to this day. No one does. I'm just a random 18 year old in a world of more than a billion people still on a journey for truth.

 

*speechless*

Well put!

 

So. 7 Days later and the personality changes are still there. I no longer have the constant anxiety that I used to. I'm open, honest and empathetic. My memory has improved. My cognitive abilities have improved. All very dramatically.

This is not deviancy. People who use this substance to just 'trip out' are abusing it. It's a drug. Aspirin was derived from tree bark. Psilocybin could be used as an anti-depressant.

I have a simple, scientific, neurochemical explanation for all this, but I need to run it by a few MDs to determine its soundness.

I'll keep you guys updated.

 

Try us.