Story Time: A Surprise Trip, Neon Rivers, and Terrible Chili Dogs

I have covered some of my more serious trips and some of my extremely intense ones but those are not always the norm. Sometimes, using psychedelics can be a much more pleasurable experience. While I maintain that "bad" trips or or the intense ones tend to hit a psychonaut over the head with enlightenment, I think there is still quite a lot of value to be had with recreational or lighter forms of use. This story is about that mild kind of trip (though I wouldn't exactly call it weak). It was never intended to be any kind of learning experience and it was always meant to be fun but, in the end, it turned out to be one of my most influential psychedelic experiences

At this point in my life, I had become friends with the mushroom man (the same one from the earlier stories). I would go over to his apartment and we, along with a few other regulars, would smoke, listen to music, drive around and it was all a lot of fun. However, on this particular day, the mushroom man took possession of his new apartment.

Before the mushroom man moved, he had lived in what some would call the "ghetto." It was actually an interesting and historic building but its location was awful, as it was wedged between the freeway, a crack infested neighborhood, and some railroad tracks. Not surprisingly, he was eager to start moving into his new place.

There was a problem though, he had been "working" all day and his brother (and roommate) had failed to get the moving truck before the rental place closed for the evening. We found ourselves there, ready to help the mushroom man move, with no way of accomplishing that goal.

To make up for his mistake, the mushroom man's brother bought us some beer and we began to drink in an apartment that was empty except for a single metal folding chair and a small stereo (which sat atop the folding chair). After a few drinks and a few joints, the mushroom man said that he could, at least, drive to his old place pick up his "merchandise" and a few essential items but he also said that he didn't want to drive "stuff" over to his old place just so he could drive it back. He emptied pockets and threw the already bagged up mushrooms onto the barren kitchen counter and said "you guys can split these up if you want to and I will be back in a little while." We offered to go but he wanted the extra room in his car for his possessions.

Between myself, Talky (from the last story), the mushroom man's brother (who was a body builder), and their cousin (who was a semi-pro MMA fighter), there were four of us and four three gram bags of mushrooms so the math was pretty easy. Eating the mushrooms was the tricky part. There were no pots in the apartment so making mushroom tea was out of the question (and even if it wasn't, there was nothing to kill the flavor). There was nothing to drink except warm tap water and warm beer but (if you read the post about my best worst trip, you know that) I don't like to mix alcohol and psychedelics. The other option was my only one and that was to choke the mushrooms down and stick my mouth under the sink (there were no drinking glasses either).

Mushrooms taste pretty bad but not so bad that consuming them in that way is completely unpleasant; however, I would prefer to wash them down with juice or a soda with a strong flavor. That being said, when a free surprise trip pops into your life, it is usually wise to just accept it and make the best of the situation.

The only lights in the apartment were in the bathroom and the kitchen but we had all crawled to different corners and were quietly listening to one of the five CD's that the mushroom man had left for us to listen to, which meant that there was no need for those lights. We sat there in the darkness as the only light left on was the dim green glow of the display on that early 2000's stereo.

This situation was somewhat unusual. Typically, when we had tripped together, we sat on a couch or in some place that was either meant for socializing or was used as a impromptu place to gather. This encourages a lot of talking during the early and intense parts of a trip but with no furniture or lights, we found ourselves isolated in the dark as we quietly experienced our trips (for the most part, we did talk and laugh at some points).

That kind of isolation might sound like a negative thing but this was not the case at all. We were close enough to each other to know that there was support near by and three grams is not an excessively high dose to begin with (though it is enough to be quite intense). Trippy conversations are great and they are some of the more enjoyable parts of trips but they can distract from the trip itself. Others can "tether" a person to reality and limit the depth of self-exploration that he or she might be able to achieve so this sort of "lonely" trip was a welcome change to my psychedelic routine.

These mushrooms were very good and they were coming on strong as I closed my eyes and sat against the wall in my corner. I saw things that looked like an overhead view of neon green and blue rivers against a black background. When I say "black" you may be picturing the blackness that you see when you close your eyes but this black was far deeper and darker. It was like looking into a pot of ink in an already dark room. That, of course, made the flowing and shifting rivers of colored lights seem more brilliant as they shined, like glowing bar signs, in an otherwise empty void.

After some time, I opened my eyes again. I could see the mushroom man's cousin, sitting across from me covering his eyes. Talky had walked into another room but that was fine. This trip wasn't super social so his absence was not noticeable. There was cheap wallpaper on the wall across from the stereo that looked like pink and yellow smoke (before taking the mushrooms, that is) but now I could make out faces in its nebulous printing.

The thing that really stood out to me was the emptiness of the room. It seemed unnatural. There was supposed to be something there but there wasn't. There was nothing designed for our comfort and (aside from the stereo) there was nothing for our entertainment. We were friends but we were not talking. However, none of that bothered me. Alien does not equal bad. I was having a great time and everyone else was too. These feelings and the contrast between them and the environment would become important later.

It seemed like days had gone by since the mushroom man left, the CD had changed, and I needed to go to the bathroom. I navigated there with the limited light of the green display and turned on the real lights once I was inside. After relieving myself, I turned the lights off again and stood for a moment in the darker darkness of the bathroom. I closed my eyes and I saw the exterior a blue and building from afar. It appeared to be organic as though it had been grown and trimmed into the shape of an asymmetrical castle. "The mushroom castle," I thought to myself but it melted away into more neon lines that looked like a circulatory system. Then they took the shape of a blue and green monstrous female face. It was somewhat abstract and it may be more accurate to say that I understood it to be a face. It was a frightening sight, like some forgotten anthropomorphic god of a long dead civilization. Strangely, I felt no fear. In the same way that I understood it to be a face, I also understood that it meant me no harm. It seemed that with mushroom monsters, looks can be deceiving.

I returned to my corner and closed my eyes again. I drifted through the trip for what seemed like a long time. I saw more strange objects but no more "beings" like the mushroom monster. The neon rivers returned. The emptiness and my lack of concern for the emptiness was always at the center my mind. I thought that I should be bored to tears but I was not. I thought that we needed to speak with each other to know that we were all okay but we did not. There was nothing to do and there was nothing to say and that was exactly how things should be, I thought.

Some time later (I have no idea how long but we were all still tripping hard), the door swung open and the sound of jingling keys, ice in paper cups, and the rustling of bags burst into our tranquil darkness. The mushroom man had returned and he had food. This was not good food but it was hot and fresh and we were all starving. He had stopped and traded one of his customers, who managed a Wienerschnitzel (if you have never been to one, despite what the name might suggest, they serve terrible chili dogs and chili cheese fries), some weed for a bunch of food (this is what had taken him so long). He began passing the terrible chili dogs and cups of soda to each of us and started describing his drive while we all ate. The interesting thing was that while that food was not very good, it seemed like the best thing in the world in that moment and the rush of cold sweet carbonated liquid was the most divine and pleasurable thing that I could possibly imagine then.

The food is what made the trip and its meaning tangible to me. There we were, eating bad chili dogs in a darkened empty room, and talking about how great of a time we were having sitting on the floor and not communicating. I came to understand that our perception of an environment matters, at least, as much as the environment itself. That night could have been super boring. That trip could have been bad too but we shifted our expectations and that changed our outlook. We perceived things differently and we found joy in a situation that would seem to be pretty hostile to that sort of feeling. Joy was in our minds. It did not require prerequisites (beyond shelter, food, and water) to achieve. That may be a small idea, when we talk about the real problems that face the world but being able to make the best of things can really go a long way toward maintaining a basic level of individual happiness.

I went home, still tripping, and rested and watched T.V. for the rest of the night until the mushrooms had finished fading away.

Peace.

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