I had my first Psilocybin trip when I was twenty years old. By this point in my life, I thought I had a good understanding of the human mind and how it paired with the material world. I was a street entrepreneur, hustling to make ends meet. I found myself staying in an apartment building by H St and 7th, having been living on my own for almost a year after my parents finally got tired of me always reeking of weed and told me to get out. Although I was already slangin' and living the fast life, being on my own gave a whole new speed to life.
Growing up in San Bernardino, I was well acquainted with weed, pills, and other substances, not only as a consumer but also as a provider. The only thing I had never put in my system was psychedelics. It may sound stupid, but I always had respect for venturing into the unknown, especially when it could result in a permanent alteration of one's consciousness.
I remember vividly being on a search for psychedelic mushrooms when I was eighteen, but to no avail. I could never seem to get my hands on them; for whatever reason, they always eluded me. I finally gave up on the idea of tripping and eventually even forgot my excitement for them altogether. It wasn’t until two years later when I was finally able to get my hands on some from a reliable source. It felt like forever since I had last thought about psychedelics, and almost as if by fate, they were in my possession.
I first heard about them when I was a kid; the older homies would always tell scary stories about tripping out on mushrooms and seeing evil demons and such. Instead of deterring me, I remember these stories would always intrigue me. There was always something fascinating about seeing these dudes, hardened by life, freak out and lose their cool over something so seemingly unassuming.
One Friday evening after work, I decided it was time. I showered after a long day and rolled myself a blunt. I sat in my car parked on H St right in front of my apartment building. I smoked my blunt until it was halfway done, then I squished up two full mushrooms and threw them in my mouth - it was already dry from the blunt, so after what felt like an eternity, I finally swallowed them down. "AND NOW WE WAIT," I thought. I set a timer for 45 minutes and sat back.
Looking out the car window, I watched hookers of all shapes and sizes walk by. The sound of their heels scraping on the sidewalk as I rolled up another blunt in hopes that the mushroom party would start quicker. The second blunt was smoked, and the timer alarm came and went, muffled through the thick weed smoke. The forty-five minutes were up, and I still didn’t feel any different. I ate two more mushrooms. "AND NOW WE WAIT," I thought to myself again, only this time the words seemed to echo in my mind.
I began feeling my thoughts and emotions in my skin. I could feel my teeth getting more and more sensitive, kind of like when I would eat too much lemon as a kid. I had the sudden urge to yawn, and yawn, and yawn. My eyes seemed to change my vision from a very wide and colorful aspect ratio to an extreme tunnel vision, a different dimension of existence. I remember looking back out the window, and for the first time, being able to see a breeze flowing like a river of color and light through the night.
I would get a bright show of colors I had never seen before every time a car would drive by; the lights would leave behind traces of themselves, sort of like a camera with a slow shutter. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, shapes that seemed to have infinite vertices. I knew I was tripping because I watched a man walk down the sidewalk with his dog; he seemed to have a silhouette of color trailing him as if it were tentacles enveloping his body. Besides him, I could see the dog vibrating so fast it seemed it had eight legs, it was glowing red and blue like an anaglyph, sort of like how an old 3-D movie would look through the flimsy red and blue glasses.
For the next couple of hours, I remained sitting in my car, elated with all sorts of colors and waves of emotions. I call them waves because just as the ocean crashes and stirs up on the beach and retracts with the same intensity, leaving the shore longing for its energy, the intense emotions came and went. Both joy and sadness were experienced that night, or what I thought were joy and sadness - I now recognize these feelings as two sides of the same coin.
As the night progressed, I found myself reflecting on my life, my choices, and my place in the universe. The psychedelic experience opened up doors of perception that I never knew existed. It was a journey into the depths of my own consciousness, confronting fears, desires, and truths I had long buried beneath the surface.
In the end, the trip left me with a profound sense of awe and humility. It was a reminder that there is so much more to this world than meets the eye, and that true wisdom comes not from seeking answers, but from embracing the mysteries that surround us. And though the journey was intense and at times overwhelming, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was a pivotal moment in my life, a turning point that set me on a path of self-discovery and growth.