[Psychedelics] Tripping Methodology: Two Techniques to Get the Most Out of Your Trip

One of the challenges when tripping is staying still for any length of time. You feel restless and energetic, eager to explore. This can cause you to miss out on some of the coolest visuals.

There is of course the usual breathing, blooming, self shadowing and moving textures regardless of what you do, but I have found that a whole separate class of much more involved, complex hallucinations can only be had by sitting and staring at one object or landscape for at least several minutes. It gives your brain time to distort it.

Some examples: In a patch of bare wood on a log which had some bark stripped from it I was seeing circuitry form by itself. Wires would snake around at right angles and terminate in little circular electrodes. All while the bare wood pulsated and grew brighter pink.

A tree I stared at on shrooms had this interestingly textured bark that began to writhe in an intense way. It looked like a bundle of muscle fibers or thick snakes struggling against each other.

While sitting and looking at a field of grass I saw these little geometric wireframe figures holding hands in long horizontal lines and dancing. The nearest line moved continuously left, the one just beyond it moved right and so on, alternating.

Often I will doubt whether I am even still hallucinating. Only in retrospect can I say that yes of course I was hallucinating like fuck, but at the peak of it, there's this deceptive feeling of normality. You really have to look for extended periods at something for it to begin doing the really overt, violent contortions.

These are the strongest, most fun memories I have from trips. Being 'stuck' in a 'scene'. Like I am part of a living picture. Locked in tandem with whatever object I am fixated on, my jaw hanging open, gasping at the increasingly incredible shit it's doing and having to put great effort into remembering to breathe.

This is of course just advice for those looking for intense hallucination. There's no right or wrong way to trip. If you are looking for intense visuals and worry you're not taking a high enough dose it could also simply be that you're moving around too much and not giving your brain a chance to do it's thing. Pick one spot to sit in, enjoy the gradually intensifying show for a while, then when you've seen everything in it's bag of tricks move on to a new spot and repeat.

Art galleries are fantastic for this as they usually have comfy places to sit in front of big paintings. I have spent what felt like entire lifetimes, just living inside of those paintings, becoming one character after the next.

The other class of hallucinations which are often neglected by beginners is CEVs. That stands for Closed Eye Visuals. Some of the most incredible sights I have witnessed on psychedelics were glimpsed with my eyes firmly closed! With nothing but the pitch black, blank canvas of the back of your eyelids to work with, everything you see is completely fabricated by your own mind rather than a distortion of the scenery around you.

It is all too easy to get so caught up in your surroundings that you forget to check out CEVs. Make note to stop yourself about two hours in, or whenever you feel you are peaking. Lay down, or sit against a tree. Close your eyes, and perhaps place your hands over them as well to block out as much light as possible.

If you're like me, it won't resemble anything at first. Abstract colorful forms blurring into one another. But the more you think about it, the more the CEVs will take the shape of your thoughts. With practice, you will become able to "steer" these visions, introducing elements, characters and scenery from your conscious mind.

For example I often see repeating tunnels of columns, doorways, stairs or whatever else occurs to me. I cannot actually fill all of that space, I'd have to design a whole world on the spot! But whatever I can come up with then repeats itself off into the distance, representing (I think) my brain's remaining unused capacity to simulate yet more scenery.

The richest, most detailed CEVs I've ever had were on 25c NBOME. They are colorful, have material properties, texture, etc. while the CEVS of LSD, mushies, 25i and d tend to be much simpler. On 25i I only see repeating runes, glyphs and other basic shapes made out of neon vectors. On 25b the background is always a blurry, nondescript mess. I have had far and away the best, most vivid CEVs on 25c.

NBOMEs are toxic mind you. People have gone to the hospital from taking as little as 2mg. I often take that much without any ill effects, but really, even 1mg is plenty. Psychedelics are nothing to trifle with, not only because of their profound emotional influence but also because not every psychedelic is as well tested and safe as LSD or mushrooms. It pays to know the specific properties of whatever you're ingesting as a basic element of trip preparation.