After a roughly three month absence I decided to visit the mushroom again. It was also to be a return to regular psychedelic exploration, since I had been doing only short acting psychedelics since my return from Burning Man. The night before I had done a series of three 5-MeO trips that was very positive. I hoped that my mushroom trip would confirm a decision I had made on the first of those three jumps. I had spent the day competing in a Magic tournament, and by the time I was ready to ingest the mushrooms I had been fasting for more than twenty three hours.

This was the first trip where I had access to an accurate scale, so I knew my dosage to be five grams. I shredded the mushrooms by hand and then prepared a tea in my usual manner, flavoring it with green tea. It was pretty tasty and went down easily. After finishing it I lay down in the dark to await effects.

Almost immediately I felt I was going to be sick. It wasn't nausea precisely, but an awareness that I was going to puke, and probably soon. I was determined to keep my potion down long enough to get the full effects of the mushrooms, so I began trying to calm my stomach. I moved about, trying to find a comfortable position, sipping water and focusing on my breathing in an effort to appease my nausea.

As I was focusing on my incipient illness, the mushroom effects were manifesting. I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that half an hour would be enough time to absorb most of the mushroom essence and that anytime after half an hour had passed, I could allow myself to vomit. Making that decision allowed me to relax a little, knowing that I wouldn't have to fight sickness all night.

The characteristic audio effects were present, but not as loud or as strange as they have been on some previous trips. Visuals were beginning to be apparent, with a distinctly Mexican/Aztec flavor. My ego became diffuse and began breaking up. Unlike many previous experiences I remained able to observe as this happened, without being overwhelmed. I believe this is largely due to my daily meditation practice, as well as my growing familiarity with the mushroom space. In any case, as I recognized my ego slipping away, I also noticed other things coming in. Before long I felt distinctly that there were other beings present, observing me. Around that time, I passed the thirty minute mark and stopped fighting with my stomach. This allowed me to sink deeply into a trance state. I felt the presence begin to merge with my being. As we achieved union, I was violently sick. This was approximately forty minutes after drinking my tea.

As I puked up the contents of my stomach (just tea) I was pulled back into my body, into the room, into more or less normal reality. After I finished puking I felt almost sober. I was momentarily afraid that I had aborted my trip, but as intricate patterns began forming and weaving themselves through everything I knew this wasn't the case. I was still very bemushroomed.

Before long I slipped back into the mushroom trance and began experiencing a convincing sensation of being in an alien presence, or several alien presences. I even felt as if these aliens were manifesting themselves physically through me. My body felt like it was coming apart and being reconfigured in various ways. At one point I felt like one of the chest buster aliens from the Alien movie was manifesting inside me. These kinds of experiences (of being disassembled and put back together) are fairly familiar to me now. I have also recognized this as a standard shamanic death/rebirth experience. Apparently, many shamans tell of being cut up or torn apart by demons and reassembled in strange configurations. As interesting as these types of experiences are to read about, they are even more fascinating to actually live through!

The trip was rich with detail, but there was so much going on it was difficult to process it all. It seemed to be a dip into the substrate of reality. I popped up into several realities, the best remembered of which was as a young adolescent shepherd in Mexico. I knew his language, had his memories, saw through his eye for a moment and then it was gone.

I felt I was contacted by the Salvia consciousness or entity during the trip. This feeling was strangely oppressive. I remember thinking "I didn't ask for this...I didn't smoke any Salvia!" This portion of the trip is somewhat ethereal, like Salvia usually is. On the other hand it also has helped to convince me that there is more going on in Salvia space than my vague recollections would indicate. While feeling the presence of Salvia I had the thought that it was a sort of Gaian Intelligence Operative that was working on and through me...

I had the feeling of being awash in eternity, bathed in the radiance of being. I felt aware of all the connections between things that we usually are unaware of. I was simultaneously aware of my relations to other people in my life, events in my past, evolutionary possibilities for the future, etc. I felt I was part of a colossal plan that stretched from the beginning of time to the ends of eternity. This feeling was very positive. The veil of space/time, the illusion of separation that defines our human existence was pierced, altered and viewed from different angles. What had previously appeared discrete was revealed to be elements of a larger tapestry.

I felt like I were keyed into the wellspring of creativity, an infinite verdant force waiting to be shaped, surfed and engineered from probability into reality. I felt it was possible to explore any possibility, any reality, no matter how bizarre or outlandish, simply by diving in and making it up as I went along. There did seem to be a skill or "trick" to it, since although I felt the possibility was there, I was unable to effectively create any reality. I think it would be much easier if one went in with a blueprint already in mind.

I also felt, very clearly, that humanity could do anything. I felt the power within me, and knew it was also to be found within everyone else, to make any possibility manifest, to dictate and shape the terms of my reality. I also felt an encouragement to actually do this, to live my life on my own terms, pay attention to my happiness and do what was necessary to make it happen, to live my life creatively, without boundaries.

I reflected on an interesting concept during the trip. Recently I had come across the idea that humanity's purpose was to observe and name the creations of god. A corollary of this seemed to be that creating something was in a sense merely a matter of observing the probability of its being and manifesting it. Thus, it seemed that our purpose was to observe and create all the possible wonders of being, to make distinctions and appreciate beauty and splendor and sadness and all the myriad possibilities of existence. This idea charmed and fascinated me, and it seems a nice map to utilize in shaping one's life, since it encourages creativity, curiosity and the value of direct experience. It is an idea that I will be pondering for some time to come.

I thought about my 5-MeO insight into my relationship with some people in my life. The decision I had made while in my 5-MeO journey seemed essentially correct, if somewhat painful. I took a moment to release what feelings of anger and resentment I held towards the people involved in the situation. This seemed to release me from any lingering tension that was hanging on due to what had happened.

By 1:00 a.m. (T+3.5) I decided to leave the house and visit some friends that live nearby. I had gotten to the state in my trip where I wanted to experience other people so I got bundled up and walked the six blocks to their house. The walk over was beautiful, as I was still infused by a distinctly shroomy glow. Everyone at the house I was visiting was on the tail end of an LSD trip. We sat around and discussed our respective trips and smoked marijuana until the early hours of the morning. Afterwards I went home and listened to music until the sun came up and then went to bed. I felt excellent the next day, rejuvenated spiritually and mentally.