Third dive

This experience was of a hike in the woods with 1 gram of dry mushrooms (still Penis envy).

The week after my second dive I felt good, the somatic manifestation of depression and anxiety as a knot in the stomach was gone and even if the thoughts were still there, they had less power to constantly divert my attention. I was able to finally share my experience with a dear friend. Five days had passed and the experience of my second dive wasn’t as present in my mind anymore. I still had words to describe it, also thanks to the time I took to dissect it as thoroughly as possible for my previous posts. Words came out of my mouth and I hope some meaning was conveyed to him, but the meaning was just a shadow to me. I played the same songs I was listening to during my trips to enhance the experience in myself and my friend, which helped.

Then the weekend came. I woke up at 6am and didn’t have anything planned, I felt the weight of an empty day and decided to go for a hike. Following my plan to experiment with low doses of shrooms I decided to bring with me 1 gram. I prepared ginger tea and snacks and drove out of town to a state park. When I was roughly 30 minutes away I ate the mushroom with dark chocolate. I timed it so that roughly 1h after ingestion I would be at a scenic spot along the hike.

The dive

Overall the experience was pleasant and manageable, definitely a great way to enhance the value of a hike. I started walking near the frozen lake and up the snowy trail. I started noticing the effect when the colors became much more intense and beautiful: the trees were covered in snow and ice and the green pine needles encapsulated in the frost gave away this fantastic light-green hue; the rocks were red, only covered in some spots with green-blue lichens. The overall color palette was magical, and beauty was free to manifest.

I was going up the trail much slower than usual, stopping often to admire the view over the frozen lake, the trees, and the big boulders I found along the path. I was near the t+1h00 mark when I arrived at the designated spot, an overlook over the frozen lake hidden between the trees, a big wall of rock formations at the back, and a single boulder standing near the edge of the cliff, 10 ft tall and balanced on its small base. This is when I started listening to Deep in the glowing heart. Even at this low dose patterns started appearing on the surface of the rock: they were faint and delicate, but beautiful and meaningful. The green and blue lichen spots on the rock looked like symbols and characters from a language unknown to me, and the edges of the rock itself looked like the silhouette of animal figures hidden in the rock. There were bird heads, bear shoulders and paws, and fern patterns covering other parts of the surface. The canopy around the rock was moving ever so slightly when I fixated it, showing the usual waves of breathing typical of mushrooms. I then focused my attention to the wall of rocks and it looked gorgeous. It looked like an assembly of big petrified animal entities, all merged with each other and composing a single geological formation. I felt their stillness throughout the centuries, I felt how ancient and immutable they were, I felt them sitting still while geological eras passed without affecting them.

I then started walking towards the top of the bluff to reach the final destination of the hike. Trees looked beautiful and peaceful and they felt wise. At the top of the hill in particular one tree stood up as perfectly placed, with big visible roots insinuating into the ground in a delicate but strong way, it felt like a tree from some elvish Tolkien realm. I reached the end of the hike where a big rock formation stood up on the side of the bluff. Multiple tall rocks were balanced against each other to form a rectangular shape with an opening in the middle (which is why this formation is called a “door”). I have been here many times before but only now these rocks composed as to form three noticeable figures. From the left there was a big muscular human-like figure, with wide shoulders and a big tall head, and this figure was facing right and standing just behind and holding their hands on the shoulders of a smaller, shorter human figure, which I’ll call “the kid”. The kid was facing right as well, his head bowed forward, his eyes closed and his forehead pushed against the right part of the big rock complex. The opening in the middle of the rock formation was the space in front of the standing kid. And the rock formation on the right was puzzling. It looked like a strange structure, an altar, or a wall with a protruding visor against which the kid was pushing his head or into which the kid was looking. At times this formation also looked like a strange figure, like some sort of ET or petrified big ass owl taller than the kid with a box body and a protruding head.

By now (t+2h00) the visuals were almost gone, but for at least two more hours I remained in an interesting state, I walked around the woods at a slow pace and focused on the atmosphere the music was creating.

I was holding on to the last traces of the psychedelic state and I started listening to Music for psychedelic therapy, whose songs have accompanied me in various phases of each trip so far, and by now have acquired so much meaning. I felt that those songs bring me back to a place, a recognizable and familiar place, a place I visited during my first dive listening to those same songs. In the psychedelic state that place is real, it breaches into reality, it permeates the air and creates this thick aura around me which colors everything I see, no matter where I am. But with this song in particular something powerful happened. The friend who recommended this album came to mind again, and I felt his presence in this place of the mind, the air was filled with it, but he wasn’t there. I felt like I was in a cave I explored before, but this time I noticed something. I could feel his presence as if he was just there, as if he left traces behind him, crumbs for someone to follow, or maybe just rope cuts he couldn’t retrieve. And I felt he was miles ahead on the path, way past that cave, out in the wild of the unimaginable realms that are on the other side, or down some unspeakable depth in one of the many vertiginous underground cavities full of unexplored crevices and exotic worlds. Visiting these places alone I feel so much meaning, they feel simultaneously familiar, comforting, scary, and worthy of deep respect. But there’s this sense of deep nostalgia and longing that I can’t explain. I wanted to ask my friend if he’s been there, in this cave, if he felt that, if the pieces of rope along the way belonged to him. I wanted to ask him what was next, where did he go. And most of all I wondered if it’s possible to go there together, if it’s possible to meet at the entrance of this cave and to walk some of the already explored paths together showing each other the way, or venture along new ones.

In the unaltered state music is able to bring us places. Conscious experience is private and there is no way to truly share one. But music can create a space, a shared place where a big part of an experience can sometimes be shared. I have shared my feelings with friends after a concert and there has been often a surprising similarity in the experiences we went through. So why shouldn’t that be the case with psychedelics? Granted, they are a magnifying glass and the experience could be even more different. But it could also be 100x times more alike, especially if the participants share what they’re feeling in the moment, to co-regulate and influence each other causing everyone to experience at least a common denominator of what each one is individually experiencing. If this is possible, it would be one of the most intense and transformative communal experiences I can conceive of. More than watching a movie and crying together, more than going on a hike and feeling exhaustion followed by elation in having made it to the top together. This must be tried, it might take some time but the reward seems immense, an experience of indescribable value that could unleash all the potential of a true shared experience: take all the affection of a long hug, the sincerity of laughing together at a joke, the shared awe in looking together at nature or art, the pleasure of sex with someone you’re intimate with, and make it explode into a supernova of shared meaning. It won’t be easy to find the right person or people, and there’s so much planning to do. But it must be done, and that’s what I’ll do, at least till the next dive.

Aftermath

I consider the experiment of a hike on 1g of shrooms a success. The dose was appropriate, the experience was tainted by mild anxiety but I can see that in a better state of mind it would have been just meaningful and fun, perhaps with some added value if shared with people I care about.

There was one noticeable after-effect of the small dose that is worth mentioning: for the rest of the day I felt grounded. One of the symptoms of anxiety has always been the feeling that I am not in the right place, that I am not doing the right task, that there is something more important I should or could be doing in some other place out of sight which is where real life happens. And I feel I’m missing out, but if I reason and find what seems a more meaningful task and switch to that the feeling persists. This is what brought me to think I have mild ADHD: because my attention is always elsewhere, what I’m doing is never enough, is never a priority. I can’t sit down and read because I feel this immense sense of anxiety that I am neglecting something much more important. The realization about this came with this experience on a low dose of mushrooms. Still walking in the woods I felt the surrounding trees were all there was, nothing was going on out of sight, there was nothing more important I was neglecting and felt anxious about. Sure there was the city I live in miles away with people living their lives, but I didn’t feel I was missing out. And most importantly, I felt that being alone, hiking in the woods was enough, that I was enough. I often feel sadness and solitude when I have a beautiful and meaningful moment alone, I feel as if it doesn’t count if the experience is not shared, that somehow I truly exist only when I am perceived, when I interact with someone else, and the interaction brings about a mutual manifestation of our respective lives. As they say how could the universe exist without an observer, and despite I myself am the observer, I feel the need to be observed to exist, to know I’m making a differences to somebody, that it’s not just me, a solipsistic universe observing itself. This feeling was gone, I was enough as was everything around me, manifesting its right to exist simply by being there in this small and unremarkable corner of the universe, without being overshadowed by the infinity of other things existing in other places.

Afterthoughts

In light of these first experiences I wonder how useful this can be as an alternative to SSRIs, and how often do I want or need to dive. During my walk a metaphor came to mind that might be useful, which I’ll call the big hike / small hike metaphor. For most of my adult life I have used hikes as a way to self-regulate and self-reflect. I naturally settled on type types of hike. Every year for multiple summers I have felt the need to plan a big hike, a multi-day backpacking trip in the wild, sometimes solo, where I would hike high mountains and challenging trails and camp in my tent in between. I would bring all equipment and food with me, and just rely on water found along the way for the entire week. These big hikes were always challenging, I would consistently regret my decision in the middle of it given how sore, sleep deprived, cold, afraid, and lonely it felt. At the end of each big hike I often thought that was the last one, that it was stupid to spend vacation days like that. And yet, in spring I always consistently started planning my next big hike, realizing how powerful that experience was and how the reward was worth the pain.
My summers were however constellated other smaller hikes which have always been serving an equally important but different purpose. These biweekly hikes were usually driven by my desire to spend some time alone, activate my body and my brain, get moving and feel alive, but also have time to reflect and be vulnerable. Walking up a train alone has always been a meditative experience for me: I would get in my head, I would start mind-wandering, thinking about work, and the more exhausted I got the more thoughts would become more challenging. During these hikes I often got a better sense of how I was doing, if anxious or depressive thoughts were arising, if I was naturally thinking about some person, about my purpose in life, about the future. And they were often accompanied by small cathartic moments where I would listening to powerful music and start crying in the middle of the woods. Or start laughing and plan a lot of cool things I wanted to do alone or with friends.

During this hike I realized that my approach to psychedelics could be just like the big-hike / small-hike one. From my limited experience so far I have learnt that deep dives are useful and potentially transformative, but they need preparation, they are most likely challenging, there is a lot of work to do afterwards, and it might take a while before I feel ready to repeat the experience. They are like the big hikes, they might look like a terrible idea in the moment, make me think I‘ll never do that again. They might be useful every once in a while and only when I feel ready and I truly want that kind of experience, they are not journeys to be embarked on with a light heart. On the other hand the mild trips are like the small hikes: they are manageable, with a lower chance of unforeseen and challenging circumstances. One could ask why do I need mushrooms for this type of experience, can’t I just hike without? The answer is that often times I probably can and I will. But the same reason why I stopped going on small hikes is the reason why mild trips might benefit me: to help me get in a receptive state where the tinge of anxiety becomes more malleable, the landscape of brain attractors more plastic, and perhaps I will be able to do some intentional work, some routine tidying up and maintenance check.

For the future

Make the mild-high longer: try 1g + 1g at t+1:00 or 1g + weed at t+2:00.
Hiking on 1g was wonderful but the visuals and receptive state didn’t last long. I wouldn’t want to make the experience more intense so perhaps a booster would keep it at the same level of intensity but make it last longer. This might achieved with a 1 gr booster at t+1:00 or with weed after the peak (t+2:00?). I guess smoking weed might make the experience more intense tho, so the two approaches might not be equivalent. To be investigated.