Around 10:10 PM (after a 24+ hour fast) I smoked an undetermined amount of rue. Enough to feel its relaxing, mild high. Immediately afterward I consumed what I hoped was 5 gm of powdered psilocybe cubensis. I may have overshot though, since this experience was far more intense than my previous 5 gm journeys. It may have just been that the quality of the mushrooms was superior to those I have tried previously.

Within 15 minutes I was beginning to sense movement and energy. I was also feeling the first pangs of nausea, and decided to try some nitrous to see if that would alleviate my discomfort. I filled and inhaled a balloon, and sat back with eyes closed as the world started buzzing and vibrating around me. The nitrous was dominant, but the oncoming psilocybin made it a much more visual experience than nitrous alone. Best of all, it eased my nausea as I had hoped it would.

I lay down to trip and my nausea slowly crept back up on me. By this time, the mushrooms were really starting to roll, and the entire darkened room seemed charged with energy and barely detectible movement. I decided to try another balloon of nitrous, again in the hopes that it would ease my nausea. It took me a few minutes of fumbling in the dark to get the balloon filled. Again, I did the balloon in two large inhalations (with a breath of air in between) and sat back. This time, the nitrous served mainly to push the psilocybin effects along, as my vision exploded into multicolored flowers and spastic mandalas exploding and throwing sparks into the darkness before my eyes. As the nitrous wore off, I lay back down.

Now my visuals began to coalesce and swirl into a tunnel of sorts. It seemed to made out of millions of discreet, multicolored bricks, somewhat like Legos. It reminded me of an ear of the multicolored corn you often see around Halloween/Thanksgiving. The tunnel led to a tableau where I became aware of the presence of other people. I was sitting in front of an old mexican indian woman and there were two others present. I had the impression it was a mushroom velada, or ceremony. I had time for a quick glance around, then I was wrenched back to my body by my amazement. About this time, things got really weird.

This period of my trip is a little fuzzy. However, there were some definite highlights. I became aware that I was experiencing other people's lives. This was extremely realistic. I remember being a woman, walking two dogs along the street. I also "became", for short periods of time, a few other people I know. In addition to experiencing these other lives, I also relived several moments from my recent past with extreme clarity. These "flashbacks" were relived with as much detail as the original experience. It was very real, and somewhat confusing.

My body seemed to be coming apart and reconfiguring itself in various configurations. By now, body image distortions are fairly familiar to me on mushrooms, since they tend to occur on every high dose journey I take. It seemed information was being transmitted to me (this feeling got stronger and stronger as the night progressed). Some of things I was "told" include: We (humanity) and the mushroom are two parts of the same thing. I was shown brain tissue and mushroom mycelium and informed "These are the same/very similar". They also seemed to be telling me a joke about getting monkeys into space, which I found incomprehensible.

As these messages began to increase, I became increasingly uneasy. I started to wonder if maybe I hadn't gone insane, or died (the usual psychedelic fears). I became very claustrophobic and conviced that I had to get out of my room. I stood up to open the door, and part of my mind was convinced that I would be unable to do so, that I was trapped here in the dark for good. I grabbed the door and yanked it open, flooding my room with light.

At this point I was very unclear as to who I was, where I was, and what the hell was going on. I was still recieving information from the voices in my head. I thought at the time they were telling me that someone was at the door (there wasn't), that the phone was ringing (it wasn't) and that I was in Minnesota (not), which was all very confusing. After reflection, I think the images and ideas I was having were highly metaphorical. They weren't trying to tell me there was someone at my door, they were trying to get an idea across to me, and using the image of someone knocking as a metaphor/example. I returned to my room and began recieving instructions and pleas to pay attention to the voices and write down what they were saying. I sat down with a pen and paper and began writing with some difficulty. And what they were telling me...

Let me add a little disclaimer here. I am not a follower of Terence McKenna's. I do not subscribe to his theories, although I have read both Food of the Gods and True Hallucinations, as well as much of the material online. His ideas are definitely entertaining, but I have a hard time lending much creedence to them. Having said that, here is the message I recieved, reconstructed from my messy notes as best as possible.

Time stops in 2012. Please be ready. The work must be finished. This is the moment all the great books of history have been writtten about. This is the birth of religion.

There was a lot more (some of which contradicted itself), including the idea that I would be somehow involved in (or even responsible for) this event, that the universe was a four dimensional information encoding algortihm/puzzle, and that the universe was fractal/holographic in nature (that is, each part contains and reflects the whole).

All during the time I was recieving this information, I was very unclear as to what was real and what wasn't. At times my confusion became overwhelming. I wanted to call someone and have them help me figure out what was going on (I resisted the urge). Bizarre ideas continued to come into my head, including the notion that I had been hit by a car and was lying somwhere dying, in a coma and imagining this whole event. I was thinking a lot about Burning Man (which was occuring simultaneously) and even thought I was there, and the "reality" I was experiencing was a 5meo hallucination. My mind kept flashing to memories of my salvia experiences. The whole trip seemed influenced by my salvia explorations. I am definitely interested in trying salvia with mushrooms, but I am not sure I am ready for that just yet.

After a while of this (an hour or so) I became convinced that the time stop had already occurred. At first this concerned me a great deal, but after thinking about it for a while, my worry dissipated. I decided that if time had indeed stopped, then the universe was now just a giant party. About this time, my roommate returned with a couple of his friends.

He asked me if I had taken the mushrooms, which reminded me that I had. I told him so, and mentioned I was still far gone (I still thought time was stopped...). He offered me some pot, which I smoked (it seemed to fit in with my hypotheses about the universe as endless party). Everyone had been drinking, and they were laughing and having a good time. The whole scene was very strange. It didn't make much sense to me, but at the same time reinforced the strange reality map I had adopted. I sat up and watched them be drunk for another hour or two before heading off to bed. When I awoke (a mere three hours after falling asleep ) I was back to normal, and utterly awed at the sheer strangeness of this trip.

This trip, although at times frightening and disorientating, was wonderful overall. I recognize many of the ideas and visions I had as ideas and themes I had been thinking and reading about in the weeks and months preceding this trip. It was fascinating to see them presented in such a convincing fashion. While I was tripping, all of this seemed entirely real to me. There wasn't the usual degree of seperation, the knowledge that what you are experiencing isn't "reality". I still haven't drawn any conclusions about this trip, and I suspect it will give me much to think about in the months to come.