My First Experience with Psychedelics: Far From Recreation, Life Changing Insights

It all started with a road trip with friends to Canyon Lake in Texas. My best friend at the time suggested it would be a good idea to try some magic mushrooms that his friend was growing organically at home. I didn’t know what to expect since I had never tried any psychedelics before besides smoking from time to time. I sure did not expect a life changing experience as such, and mushrooms were not so well known in 2003 as they are now.

The Process

We were unaware of dosages and just ate a couple of medium mushrooms which would have been probably roughly more than one gram. At first my normal anxiety seemed to have incremented a little bit, what I now know, is actually normal at the beginning of the trip in some cases. We had some music playing, and I was trying to dance to it, but I somehow just felt awkward, so I started shaking my hands quite fast for a minute to try to shake of the anxiety, my friend just looked at me but let me be. After doing that I felt a deep calm and we had the rest of our trip just having some deep conversations, when I got home I think I continued on with some family having some good talks.

The Effect

When I finally made it to my bedroom I was still with this very positive and clear perspective on life, and I came up with probably one of the best ideas I had in life, which was that, if everything I was thinking and feeling was coming from inside of me, and if what is true today is likely true tomorrow… if I could WRITE all the ideas down, possibly I could make myself think the same thing the next day and reproduce the positive feelings without the need of any mushrooms. And so I wrote and wrote, my hands could not keep up with the speed my mind was thinking, I wrote fourteen pages straight up fast until the  muscle of my thumb was on fire, only then I decided to stop and just go to sleep. The next day I woke up feeling better but yet still felt a pressure on my chest, I grabbed the bunch of sheets of paper next to me and read them, and oh boy did I felt a big load off my chest, the kind of deep breath that even makes your spine pop as if it was a minor chiropractic adjustment. It said things that made some much coherence and mostly relevant to the conflict of that age of a teenager becoming an adult and finding its place in the world, things like “we are all rain from the same clouds, speak up”, etc. Around that time in my life I was going through a depression, but at that age I was not even aware that I was depressed. I didn’t know what or where to go to college, didn’t have a job and therefore no money, did not exercise, parents getting divorced, and I was drinking a few beers almost everyday and quite many on the weekends, you get the picture. Now I definitely had a mindset shatter and reborn after that episode, and little by little things started to fall into place. I kept reading the script for about a couple of weeks thereafter, but also I got into the habit of connecting with myself and processing things by writing. It is probably one of the best therapies I found, as it is only you and a blank sheet of paper, there are not any bias as could maybe be when going to a therapist, also there is something of magic about the flow of writing once you get into it. 

Now it is important to mention that you should never try any psychedelic without professional assistance of a sober “sitter” and that you always start with a very small dose to see how your body reacts, as well as keeping handy something for allergies and a sugary drink in case you have your blood pressure drop. In our Mushroom Retreats we always start with a 30% of a regular dose supervised by a medical doctor to make sure everything is fine. You must always prioritize safety, and by no means try any psychedelic if you are taking medications or supplements that affect serotonin as you can risk going through a serotonin syndrome episode. Consult your medical doctor to check if this an option for you in any case. In our Mushroom Retreat in Mexico we also provide a breathwork session with a coaching meditation, and some people claim that they got more from the breathwork therapy than the magic mushroom session itself, ironically enough. Breathwork is like the organic way to achieve a psychedelic experience with a lot less contraindications, breathwork contraindications mainly are if you have a cardiovascular health issue, bipolar disorder, epilepsy. Inform yourself well before any type of therapy. Have a safe trip, wink wink…