Finding Freedom in Forgetting and Joy in Remembering: A Psychedelic Tale

I was seventeen and I had been experimenting with mushrooms for a while already when decided to take a truly large amount for the first time. Previously, I had been consuming the fungus for fun. My doses were moderate and all but a few of my trips were equally moderate. However, I had heard tales of the true power of psychedelics. I knew that they had lessons to teach and wonders to unveil if I was brave enough to travel deep into my consciousness (with the help of a big handful of "shrooms").

I was a teenager and I didn't have a job so I saved all the money that I could until I had enough to buy five and a half grams of rather potent mushrooms and an ounce of particularly shitty weed. My friend and psychedelic companion for the evening was always compelled to one-up everyone so he bought six grams for himself. "This is going to be a crazy night," I thought.

We ate our mushrooms with a glass of orange juice and rolled a blunt out of the low quality herb and an emptied Philly's cigar. There was some bit of information that I had come across on the internet (it may be a myth) that orange juice would increase the potency of a mushroom trip. I can't say if that is the case because it is hard to tell exactly how strong your trip is going to be before you take it. However, the orange juice was very effective at masking the less than appealing flavors of the mushrooms and the smoke. The blunt was very large and even though it tasted awful, it managed to get us pretty high while we waited for the leading edge of the trip to arrive.

That edge quickly came upon us. We had only just extinguished the remaining nub of a blunt, that had been our pre-trip entertainment, when I began to notice translucent patterns covering my walls. They looked like elaborately decorated scales of gold or bronze with an emerald glowing in their centers. When I closed my eyes, I found myself in a cavernous series of spherical rooms that were constructed with a skeletal network of neon green light that formed pillars and vaulted arches in the ceilings and floors. I imagined that I could lose myself in that alien place and I decided to open my eyes before that happened.

My friend and I talked as the world seemed to "shrink" around us. I felt like we were in a space that stood apart from the rest of the universe. Some may think that this feeling would be quite isolating or claustrophobic but it was rather peaceful. All there was to be concerned with was the experience and the moment which was pretty liberating.

We found ourselves outside, smoking the last of our cigarettes, while we looked at the star filled sky. There was a "snake" of colored squares that seemed to slither through space as the stars warped around it and shifted position. I thought about trying to describe it to my friend but it became an "alien Persian rug" pattern and then something else before I could articulate what I was seeing.

"I can't remember anything that has ever happened," my friend calmly said. I thought that this was an absurd statement and I giggled before I realized that I couldn't remember anything either. As the world had "disappeared" from our understanding, so too did our memory of it. For a moment we existed there in complete innocence. In our minds there was nothing but our current state of consciousness and the moment that it existed in. We discussed our situation over a prerolled rolled joint (I like to prepare before my trips) and came to understand that this sense of nothingness was the truest form of freedom. Our minds were unhindered by anything because nothing (besides our surroundings and the joint) existed to hinder them.

We laughed and celebrated our freedom for what seemed like weeks (it was probably only two hours) before the real world intruded into our trip and taught us a new lesson. My friend's mom called and said that she was going to stop by and check on us. This was not a problem. She knew that we were tripping and did not have a problem with it. She arrived and asked us to step outside. When we did as she had asked, reality and our memory of it suddenly returned. Forgetting had brought a wave of liberation but remembering carried a new application for life. My friend's mom was concerned for us and that was wonderful. She gave us cigarettes and that was great. The world around us was large and full of possibility. It was like we learned about every good thing that exists all at once and the joy that was generated in that moment is indescribable.

We finished the night by talking and smoking. The sun came up and and seemed to shed new light on the old world. We went back to normal but we were also changed for the better.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.