Playing God
Psilocybin and Nitrous

Substances: Nitrous oxide, Psilocybe cubensis

Last night, after over a week of anticipation, I once again entered mushroomspace.
I had told my S.O. about a week before that I felt that this trip should be solo, and she understood. So, when the time arrived, the family departed to a nearby friend's apartment, leaving me alone and at the mercy of the gods.

Before beginning preparation of the Tea, I practiced sitting for about twenty minutes to felp focus my mind and calm my body. I was reminded of how disorganized the desktop of my mind was, and how unfocused and unmindful of my actions I generally am- I was/am determined to change this.

After sitting, I picked up and flipped through the Upanishads looking for bits and pieces of ancient wisdom that might help guide me on my journey. I began preparation of the tea, and set out some assorted magickal items that I thought might be of use during the excursion: A box of N2O cartridges with balloons and cracker, a bong with a bowlful of P. harmala seeds, a pipe loaded with some marijuana, a handheld tape recorder, and paper/pens.

While the tea sat saturating, I wrote some stuff down in an attempt to figure out exactly what it was that I was hoping to accomplish with this trip.

Finally, after about an hour of pre-trip preparation, I drank the tea and dimmed the lights.

I sat awaiting the effects. Having food-fasted that day, they were felt within minutes.

I laid on the floor and tranced out. I was pulled through a seemingly never-ending corridor of infinite possibilities- I would occasionally feel the need to refocus and pull myself out of the trance, and would often find myself in some rather unusual positions that I would not normally think possible for me to get into.

While sitting in a full lotus (that I have no idea how I got into), an image of myself sitting in a lotus appeared in my mind. I seemed to be older- and then I got even older, I must have been in my sixties or seventies, sitting in a full lotus position. I saw the point at which I, as an old man, will inevitably relinquish all ties with this plane of existence and embark on the really big trip known as death. (A mushroom trip just isn't a mushroom trip if I don't go through a few death-loops, it seems.)

After an hour-and-a-half of solo tripping, I decided that I was unusually able to navigate my body while in mushroomspace and no longer felt the need to trip solo. I put the harmala and nitrous into my coat pockets and set out to join my fam and friend.

I arrived, Daft Punk thumping on our friend's stereo. It was sooo cool. I found my S.O. and friend to be signifigantly stoned, and I broke out the Nitrous accessories. I inflated the balloon (finding operation of the cartridge cracker to be a bit difficult) and exhaled the air from my lungs. I took in the balloon and...

Ahhhhh- so nice, as always. My body was enveloped in a warm tingly glow and the sounds in the room (and my head) took on the usual nitrous "tinny" sound I have become so familiar with. The music was amazing- it seemed as if it was intended precisely for listening while tripping on an N2O/Psychedelic combo.

I did three more balloons, each propelling me further into nitrous-nirvana.

We sat around and I remained relatively quiet while the others shot the proverbial shit. Eventually I decided to come home, and my S.O. joined me. After sitting at our house for a while, we remembered that our favorite music video show, AMP, was on MTV, so we turned it on- soooo very very trippy. I wonder what people who have not experienced the wonderful world of entheogens must think of such things. Also, the commercials during AMP are, it seems, often targeted at the tripping audience. I found it very satisfying to see that psychedelics have so deeply wounded themselves into the fabric of our culture, and felt a brief glint of optimism for the future of the human race.

After AMP was over, we sat around and decided to try one of Aleister Crowley's experiments, in which one tries to guess which tarot card will be next. We both described a great deal of the cards with extreme accuracy, sometimes sketching out the picture we thought would be on the next card before seeing it, other times guessing the number, gender orientation, dominant colors, suit, etc. (Eeerie, ain't it??) I feel that once I have further familiarized myself with the Crowley tarot deck, I will be much better at this experiment, and look forward to repeating it!

After going through 81 cards (a time-consuming process), we smoked some cannabis and both felt exhausted. Shortly afterwards, we fell asleep on the floor and I awoke the next morning feeling generally good.

All in all, I would have to classify this trip as meandering between a 3 and a 5+ on the Shulgin scale. Any time, for me anyways, when Nitrous is brought into the picture when you're tripping at a level 3+ already, you're pretty much guaranteed a cosmic unity experience if you do it right. I never got around to smoking that P. harmala, maybe next time...