LIFE EXPERIENCE
My Mushroom Experience
A preview of what is possible
I still have difficulty saying and writing the word ‘psilocybin.’ But the first experience with it, I’ll never forget.
I was on a two-day camping trip in the forest, and a friend happened to bring the magic mushrooms. I’ve always wanted to try it after years of reading, researching, and listening to stories about it. So I did. As it was my first time, I tried only 1 gram of this mushroom. I simply chewed and swallowed it.
It was an experience. Literally, it was a trip in a trip. And enlightening trip inside a nature trip.
One hour after eating the mushroom, I began to feel something subtle was happening. It was more of a mental than a physical sensation.
Things started feeling funny. I just wanted to giggle and laugh.
We were camping next to a waterfall in the forest. Everything around us was natural except for the tents, backpacks, and the supplies we brought. There were nine of us on the camping trip. People were busy doing their stuff — cooking, cutting bamboo, talking, and walking around the campsite.
I felt the need to have private time, so I told my partner — she was busy cooking — and slid into my tent. I laid down. Then I started giggling. Everything felt so funny. I heard two friends outside having a conversation about politics, and psychedelics. Everything they talked about felt funny. I laughed on my own.
I was laid down flat on the ground but found myself constantly twitching. It felt like there was a ball of energy inside my body that kept moving randomly. I also had to open and stretch my jaws quite often, like there was a lot of stress trapped there. It felt good when I did this.
Obviously, I couldn’t fall asleep or meditate. So after an hour or so, I got out of my tent to socialize with others. Some of them too were tripping like me. Having experienced this before, they were immersed in the experience as mature adults. I went to them and started conversations only to find myself laughing a lot. Those who understood what I was going through laughed with me, the rest were just quiet.
As the night came, we had a campfire, and had dinner, talked, and played music. At one point, I was quiet, looking at the beautiful night sky, seeing the huge rocks in the mountains, and listening to the waterfall.
It was at the moment, I sensed two things that was life-changing:
- Everything is funny. The majority of the thoughts I have aren’t important. I can let them go, and laugh at them. Whatever I need in my life will come to me as a non-thought, in a non-linguistic language like the one I was experiencing. This experience was such a relief because it meant I didn’t have to feel enslaved by my own thoughts and feelings anymore.
- Everybody is having their own personal experience through their body and being guided by their highest form, an energetic force. This is when I really felt the meaning of the word “Namaste” which is a Sanskrit word that can be translated as “my highest self bows to your highest self.” All I had to do was to meet people at that place — that highest place they can be while being at my highest place. Anything else was not important.
This second realization went further. I had this vision of a hurt deer in the forest that was struggling after an accident with bruises and cuts — perhaps it had gotten away from an attack of a wild animal. I saw myself observing the deer.
Normally, I would have felt the pain, and also suffered. But I didn’t.
I could sense that the deer too had a higher form to it. This higher-form was there to guide the deer at all times. If I could, I could help the deer, but if not, I could simply bow to its suffering, to its highest form, send compassion and walk on. There was no need for me to feel stuck and helpless because I couldn’t do anything.
The deer had access to that energy like any other sentient being. I was one of them in this design of life, the dance of life, in infinity.
We all have ourselves, this body, and the energy that is always guiding us. So the point is to connect with one another through that energy.
All this brought me to the realization that while everyone is struggling, we all have our own personal guides. And in that case, our chief responsibility is to meet each other at the place of that highest-energy form. Whatever that means. But the feeling is one of ease, happiness, and oneness.
About four hours after consuming the mushroom, the trip slowly started to fade away. There is no hunger for more. No addiction. But the imprint of that feeling of enlightenment was there. It has been over two weeks, and that imprint is still there.
It was like a preview of what is possible.
In the long term, relying on mushrooms might not be sustainable. I have a feeling that the same experience can be had with meditation. It just takes more time and effort. Psychedelics like psilocybin is a shortcut, nonetheless extremely helpful because it shows us what is possible.
I am grateful to the mushroom for giving me that imprint.