The People Tanks

I've had an experience on several trips that I'd like to share and see if anyone else has been there.

The People Tanks are a very odd thing experience, and alarming to an extent. I've been there a couple times, each on at least 3.5g, and I've experienced it in two distinct sets of sensation. There is the sensation of being in two places at once, which is weird, yet common. Most of the time isn't that what a trip is? The simultaneous experience of the inner world and the outer world? Two places at once. When I've experienced what I'm calling The People Tanks, I've been sitting quietly in the outer world, yet feeling like I was also in this other place, which felt very real, at the same time.

When blind-folded, the CEV's I would get were of a small, dark room with a faint, possibly green lighting, and around this room are what would appear to be coffins, except I don't think they contained dead people. It reminded me more of the people tanks in the Matrix, though not a grand or as organized. It was more like someone piled a bunch of those tanks in a storage closet somewhere. What's more, I had the feeling that I was in one of these tanks and I was looking around this room at others.

When not blind-folded, I retained the physical feeling of being in one of these tanks. At the same time I felt that I was both sitting on the couch minding my own business. In the outer world, I was free to go about my business as always, yet in the inner world I felt trapped, thrashing around in a tank trying to get free. The combined sensation felt like I was literally coming out of my skin, like the two works were diverging and in a sense tearing me apart. I felt paralyzed in this inner world. This was accompanied by a sensation that if I didn't maintain a grasp on my outer world self, that self would disappear, and all that would be left is my inner self, which would "wake up" inside this tank, in this small dark room, unable to move.

The overall impression is that of being a psychological prisoner. I don't know if this is something other people have gotten a sense of, but I'll go ahead and coin a phrase here and call it being "mind-cuffed". I guess it's the sense of being trapped spiritually. If mushrooms give us access to another world, it seems to me that someone or something else may be trying to control that other world, and in fact perhaps some of us are actually captives in this other world, I guess I would be one of them. That's something to meditate on right there huh? Whatever you want to call it, there is an inner, hyper-dimension that we access while dreaming, tripping, etc. At the same time we're experiencing this outer dimension, this common, consensus reality. While we're all (I for one) trying to figure out what's going on here, and explore this inner hyper-dimension, is seems maybe someone or something has been hard at work there already, trying to take it over and control it.

I've yet to come across anyone else mentioning a similar experience, so I don't know yet if it is a fantasy I created for myself or something more. Has anyone else out there seen or felt the People Tanks?

Performance Enhancing Mushrooms

What is this, Super Mario Brothers? Honestly that's the first thing that comes to mind thinking about mushrooms being performance enhancing, a chubby plumber munching down on one and then going buck wild. In all seriousness though, mushrooms can be a performance enhancer at the correct dose and with a bit of training. To an extent this can be said of other psychedelics as well, for instance Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD.

Terence McKenna floated the theory that mushrooms are responsible for human evolution for precisely this reason. Part of this theory hangs on the boost to visual acuity one gains at lower doses, which has been said to be one of the bigger beneficial traits out on the plains of Africa. Added energy and sexual arousal are also noted as benefits, especially in an evolutionary sense. The more you can do and the more you reproduce, the more you "win".

I do have personal experience that, for me anyway, backs this up completely. However, where McKenna was focused on how performance was enhanced in kind of a Darwinian, survival of the fittest kind of way, my experience is with more conventional realms- games and work.

When playing games (both video and other) I've found that not only is my visual acuity heightened, but so is my reaction time. There is also a certain je nous se qua, a kind of luck that can't be explained, an ability to do things that would seem impossible or highly unlikely, and doing them without even really giving it any thought. Kind of a superman auto-pilot. I've experienced this primarily with video games where the physical realm doesn't intrude as much (obviously I'm not a superman), and the experience is generally along the lines of pulling off moves that I would have assumed to be impossible. However, like I said, it seems thought-less, or rather, intentionless- wu-hsin ("no mind"). It is a lot like watching someone else play.

While I wouldn't recommend working on mushrooms, I've done it, and it was interesting. A couple of times while I was a line cook I worked on lower doses (about 2 grams). The benefit here, aside from the a fore mentioned energy boost, is a kind of mental clarity of everything going on. When you're working as a line cook, you usually have a bunch of things going on at once. There are things cooking, orders coming in, side work to do, etc. A lot of things to keep track of, and harder still, a lot of things that need to coordinate amongst themselves, the timing must be right. While on mushrooms this task actually seemed to be automated for me. It was as if there was a mind of dashboard in my head that I could see almost visually that told me everything that was going on and directing me to what needed to be done next. Again, the idea of an auto-pilot comes to mind.

There is one realm where the performance enhancing aspect, I think, actually makes things more difficult, and that would be driving. I've done this once, again on a lose dose of about 2 grams. I found that all the same benefits apply, and if I were in a race it would actually have been helpful. However, while driving down the highway, there just isn't enough going on to keep your attention. I found it more difficult to focus on driving, and in that way it became distracting and in fact detrimental. It can be done, but it isn't easy and the risks are too high, I can't recommend that anyone, ever do this (understanding of course that sometimes you do what you have to do).

In short, I think there is ample evidence, for me anyway, that shows mushrooms are highly beneficial when used correctly. I guess this begs the question, what's the correct way to use them?

Cognitive Dissonance: Psychedelics vs. The Rest

Now, being a psychedelic enthusiast as I am, I tend to take an interest in all things concerning the subject, and one arena of psychedelics that I've always found "off", are the legal/public/social perspectives. On the surface everything appears normal, psychedelics are powerful, mind altering "drugs". Seeing as people are entirely irresponsible with such things, they should be illegal just like all the other powerful, mind altering drugs-- cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. The attitude seems to be, "they're all the same, these hard, strong drugs that people can't handle, a danger to society, etc." but this is the only place where I can find a relationship between psychedelics and the rest of the hard drugs. We're so eager, collectively, to lump these substances in with everything else we don't understand and thus fear, yet when it comes right down to it, this is really the only time and place any of us really makes and effort to relate the two, so I'm calling bullshit, this just doesn't add up!

Why should psychedelics be treated like all these other substances that they have nothing to do with, especially when it seems clear to me that none of us, even those with no clue what psychedelics are all about, really even believes it? Or more specifically, why do the various world governments want psychedelics to be illegal, yet stop short of treating it the same way they do the other scheduled substances? I think its a scam! I think what's really going on is that the way psychedelics are being treated strikes me as a real anti-drug use policy, where the way amphetamines, opiates, etc. are treated strikes me as self-contradictory bullshit. I think all these things are illegal so the public doesn't try to differentiate between them, but the substances that the powers that be really want us to stay away from are obscured and forced out of the public's conscious awareness. And I think the reason for this is clear, they don't want us to use psychedelics, but they're perfectly happy to see new crack addicts.

I say the treatment of psychedelics seems like a real "anti-drug use policy" because with the exception of legality, psychedelics are treated the same way things like cannibis are treated in places where its legal. It simply doesn't get any attention, and therefore it won't be used as much. You see the same thing in places like Amsterdam and Portugal where these things are legal. It is because they're legal that they aren't glorified and they aren't the focus of the publics attention, and therefore they aren't in high demand. Whereas the treatment of hard, addictive substances is way more tounge in check. Sure, they'll make it illegal and tell you not to do it, but at the same time they'll push all the social propaganda they can to get you to want it.

The formula is rather simple. Equate psychedelics to hard, physically addictive, and dangerous substances, then focus the public's attention on the substances that are obviously harmful. Of course they know full well people are going to try these things, so the effort is to focus the public on what they want us using, and try to ignore as much as possible what they don't want us using. If one wanted to take this one step further, all you would need to add is the fact that cocaine and heroin are government subsidized and psychedelics are not. With few exceptions, we're not seeing large amounts of mushrooms being smuggled, we're not seeing peddlers slinging DMT on street corners, we're not seeing LSD labs being busted in the main stream media. Yet every day we hear about the problems crack is causing in inner cities, about South American guerillas producing large amounts of cocaine, about the opium boom in Afghanistan, and about the meth epidemics in the south and midwest states of the US.

One of the places this can be seen the most clearly is with enforcement policies such as drug detection. The big 5 when it comes to drug testing are cocaine, heroin, cannibis, methamphetamine, and amphetamines. For the most part this is a completely worthless effort with the exception of cannibis, because most of these substances metabolise so quickly. Though it depends on the test, many of the saliva test only detect cannibis for up to 24 hours after your last hit. What good is that? The same substances are what K9's are trained to go after too. But why aren't tests commonly made to detect LSD? Why aren't dogs commonly trained to trigger on mushrooms? So you don't think about LSD and mushrooms, that's why. Otherwise, you may be made curious to them and be tempted to learn about or try them. It's almost as if the message is intended to be, "Yea, LSD and mushrooms are illegal, but no one in their right mind would have anything to do with them, so we won't bother looking for them. But everyone loves coke, we really have to check for that."

So in conclusion, I think we're being subtely encouraged to use the substances that are known to destroy life, and I think we're being guided into self-induced amnesia regarding psychedelics. I know this begs the question, "Yes, but why?" Sorry, I'm leaving that one up to the imagination for now.

Trip Report Review: "A Story in the Void"

"A Story in the Void: Deep thoughts eloquently expressed" comes to us out of the void from a post by an anonymous author on Lycaeum. A well organized (and indeed "eloquently expressed") report from a person seeking guidance, it is both respectful and informative with regards to the experience.

SET: Supplicative. I feel I needed this kind of communion in preparation for the upcoming visit with my family. I am encouraged by my previous experience, but wanted to clarify certain issues.
SETTING: Saturday afternoon in my apartment.
DOSAGE: About 4 grams dried psilocybin mushrooms, a few hits of cannabis, orange juice.
The effects begin 25 minutes after ingesting the sacrament. I am seated, breathing regularly, listening...

Excellent beginning to a trip report! I know exactly what I need to know going into it. The author clearly states their intent and state of mind going into the experience, where they are, and how much they ingest. While mentioning a few hits of smoke and the OJ may seem unnecessary (we would have assumed as much right?), I think it is a nice touch. Overall the description of the experience is, as claimed by the subtitle, eloquently expressed.

This was the sole clear visual I can recall. However, the whole mushroom experience always has an element of being "shown" things -- but this showing is not a visual presentation of images so much as a visceral apprehension of fundamental truths. It is showing in the sense of "understanding", as opposed to seeing in the usual sense. I seems to be confronted with the essence of a particular metaphor or archetype. All that follows is "seen" in this way.

This, I think, is a description of the Logos with respect to the mushroom experience. The language it is most adept to is not linear and would seem to be atomic in a sense. It is a sensation I'm familiar with as I've experienced similar, subjective experiences. I would suppose it is a form of telepathy where the transmission of the thing and the thing itself are singular-- as if it were the thing itself being transmitted, and that this happens instantaneously! The thing being expressed is simply and suddenly there, in your consciousness, before your subjective reality filters have a change to distort it. It is something beheld.

It is like a guided tour at the brink of the Abyss. The mushroom leads you to the cliff, and points, and commands you to look. To be sure, there is a guard-rail, and a concession stand, and the guide cracks jokes somewhat lamely. It can be banal, even silly, and the brochure guarantees that there is no danger of falling off the edge.

I've been mocked before by mushrooms! I can remember at least one experience rather vividly where I was being shown something I didn't quite grasp, over and over. Each time I remember the sensations of fear and amazement at what I was being show (perhaps the details will come in a future posting of a trip report of my own) and the mushrooms would almost seem to be laughing at me and talking with itself, "Should we show it again?" "Yea! Again! hahaha"

You see all life pouring past you over that trembling, aching lip, pouring back into the Mystery, receding into Truth, never slowing, constantly renewed. And you understand that someday you will stand at this precipice again. On that day, the concession stand will have been boarded up, the railing will be rusted to the ground, and the brochures will have long ago blown away. Then the only guide will be a familiar, quiet voice which beckons to you gently from the depths of the Mystery.

I believe this is also a familiar experience. To me these seems to me to be a place somewhere on the edge of timeless, hyper-dimensional space. And it is because of this timeless nature and entire lives can be compressed into an instant. I've had the sensation where what seems like an eternity flies by in what would normally be the blink of an eye, yet it is there in its entirety. Billions of years in this conventional reality is compressed to what is perhaps a single point in hyper-dimensional space. (Actually, this is what I was being shown when the mushrooms were mocking me, mentioned above. They would repeatedly "recreate" this universe- create it, show me the entire thing, collapse it back into nothing, and do it again. As I stood there aw-struck and fearful that they might actually be destroying entire universes, they would laugh and say, "Again?" "Show it again!")

By far, mortality is the overwhelming theme of the mushroom trance. All else is commentary, metaphor, detail. Issues of life and death arise like idols before me, demanding sacrifice. It is a kind of reckoning. My mind is led directly to the instant of life's fleeting, without the crutches of distraction and numbness to which it is accustomed. There I am confronted with the things that make one take life very seriously, issues of conscience, sacrifice, and responsibility. I behold with a shudder that I am living on borrowed time, and that the things I love most in life are all busied in their own passing. We are living on borrowed time. This is a source of acute urgency. Time is a call to responsibility: to live, to love, lest it all end in tragedy.

I've seen my own deaths many times. I say deaths because I'm probably not the only one of me, so then I'm also not the only one of me that will have to die. I've been shown all the different ways I could die and I've been given a taste of what it would feel like. This has always been an intense, but ultimately rewarding experience, though I know it troubles a lot of people. At some point, after witnessing then pondering your own death over and over, you stop caring. You say to yourself, "Alright, well let's see which one this reality picks for me, onward!" and at that point a tremendous weight is lifted off your shoulders. But if you don't surrender to this, if you fight it, it will only be more painful. The simple truth being expressed is that your body will die, and the more you deny it, the stronger its expression. Definitely one source of bad trips for the uninitiated.

But understand also that we do not exist in isolation from the universe. That is an illusion, a trick of our sophisticated mind. Our life, our perspective, is unique. It is the mechanism of creativity. But we are all one substance, changeable. I look in the mirror and see the universe presenting itself in a particular way, as with all the things I see around me. Where is the distinction between my body and the world? Truly, the only distinction is in language. It seems to me that differences in shape and color and chemistry are superfluous creations of the linguistic mind. We are animate bits of a great cohesive Whole, rising and falling like waves. The Buddha has said this all already, only better.

Indeed, this is a healthy dose of Buddhism right here, something that seems quite at home and natural in the mushroom experience. I have gained some deep insight into various Buddhist concepts while on mushrooms. Anyone also interested in Buddhism and mushrooms, I would recommend this, for your next trip, find some Alan Watts recordings, and listen to those while you're tripping.

It is daring me to BE. The mushroom is not impressed with idle speculation: it is truly the voice of conscience. It is my own inner voice, so rarely acknowledged, challenging me to go beyond myself. I hear it almost taunting me, laughing at my pretensions, waiting to see if I have the courage to act, waiting to see what I will Do. I sense the expectation of the world, waiting for me to make sense of it -- but not waiting for long! There will come a reckoning, even within my own heart. When that time comes, will I be ready? And if it were to come today?

This is always a mind fuck with me. Time and time again, I've had mushrooms show me what I could be. Beautiful visions of myself doing all the things I wish I could do, and sometimes I do interpret it as a sort of taunting. I'm being shown what is possible for myself and my life, and then being dared it give it a shot, to see if I can pull it off.

Time is flying: I hear the wailing of the grave, "Make a difference!"
...
The voice within me says clearly, "Be thankful," and surely I am.
...
The mushroom tells me, "You will find words in the living of your life."

More examples of communication with the mushrooms. They can be rather direct and commanding in the way they speak to you. And they really don't seem to care if what they say hurts your feelings. But at the same time, they'll say what they have to say. I find its best to acknowledge them lest they become more insistent in their attitude. I don't know if you can "piss off" mushrooms, but I'm not trying to find out.

I approached this journey hoping to clarify where I must go with my life. At first it seemed my question had been ignored. After all, the mushroom shows you what you truly need to know, not necessarily what you want. But at the end it seemed that I had received ample clues to guide me...The mushroom has shown me what I must do -- though it remains up to me to find the way. As it fades back into the glow of mundane reality it speaks clearly, one last time: "Be a teacher. Be a storyteller. Or be gone!"

The key point here, "it remains up to me", akin to, "I can only show you the door, you must walk through it." When the trip is over, the choice presented is, "Do I give any more thought to what I learned or do I dismiss it as lunacy?" And I think this is the big question when it comes to the psychedelic experience in general: "Is it serious?" I am here to contend, "Yes its fucking serious!"

Overall this was an excellent trip report. A bit verbose, but still an excellent depiction of the experience. While I won't argue that words really can't capture it all, for the time being at least, its almost the best we have for this purpose of comparing our experiences. This report captures some key concepts of the experience that I was able to directly relate to some of my own experiences and experiences others have had.

This is why trip reports are important, because what we need to figure out is whether or not the experience is ubiquitous. We're trying to defeat the contention that it isn't, the contention that in fact all this is, is the random firings of neurons having a traumatic experience with a foreign substance. That the psychedelic state is really just the brain going crazy with no substantive value. I know this isn't true, but most people don't, and it are perceptions like this that make mushrooms illegal and pervert and retard our understanding of them. If we're ever going to develop a mature relationship with these substances, we need a mature understanding of what they do and why.

A Blog Of Dreams

I'm really fucking excited about this blog and I don't really know why. The thought, "If you write, they will come" just crossed my mind! I'm pretty sure that since I started this yesterday I haven't had a single visitor, and yet, I feel like I already know everyone who will end up reading this! :)

I've had blogs before. Hell, I've already had this blog before (this is my second attempt at this project). This one feels different somehow and I definitely feel a muse with me; I'm overflowing with ideas to post about!

Anyway! I really just wanted to share that with all of you, my non-existent readers! Until next time!

For The Record, A Disclaimer Of Sorts

I am definitely going through a McKenna phase at the moment, and two questions that seem to reoccur are: "are you suggesting everyone should experience psychedelics?" and "do you think people who haven't need a guide?" These are two crucial questions that anyone who would attempt to do anything that may alter public opinion on the matter should answer. I think this means I should answer them, and I will, but citing McKenna, because I think he nailed it.

To the first, McKenna seems to answer yes and no. To an extent, he definitely excludes those who would be unfit from experiencing psychedelia, while at the same time suggesting that if you haven't, it's like you haven't had sex. While this is is a hypocrisy on the surface, I believe the paradox is the fault of the language, the answer is really, "if you can handle it, you must try it, if you can't, don't even consider trying it" This leaves a gray area, but at the same time I don't think this is a contradiction- it's a spectrum. On one end you have those who definitely shouldn't use entheogens, on the other end you have those who really need to experience this, and then everything in between.

For me there was no question. Even when I had only the slightest concept of what we were talking about, I knew I had to see what it for myself. For anyone who hasn't tried this and feels that same way, don't go munching just yet, stay tuned to this blog. For everyone else, you either know what I'm talking about or you don't. Now, don't get me wrong, there are people (most of them by definition) who really aren't suited for psychedelics. A subset of this group would probably melt down and the consequences would be dire, but this is a minority, and they're pretty obvious, and for that matter, if they are that... "bad"? then it would at least be obvious to the rest of us (and we should act accordingly). However, if you fall in the gray area where the worst case scenario is a bad trip, then I really think you should consider giving it a go, because that's where we all were before our first trip. Just make sure you know what you're getting into, and make sure you read about the next question!

To the second question, "does one need a guide if they haven't tripped before?" McKenna answers that no one should do this without a guide unless they are confident they don't need one. It's a bullshit answer. No one should do this without a guide. If they're confident they don't need one it's only because they've already done it. If they have, and they're still "confident" they're bullshitting themselves. The general public has no fucking clue what this is all about and they have no business getting into it without the required education, and right now that is only available with a guide.

For me... I didn't really have a guide unless you count the internet. Just about everything I know about this I have the internet to thank for it. When it came to my first trip, if my dealer and my roommate seemed ok with the amount I was taking, well that was enough for me, but then again, I'm also the kind of person that you can't tell not to do something. I'm the kind of person that does whatever the fuck I damn well please and I'll piss on the consequences later. However, thinking about the people I love in my life, I would rather ALL of them come to me as a guide, at the least and as if for no other reason, to enrich the experience. People tend to think of a guide as a "babysitter". I think of it more as a travel agent. A guide will help you get the most out of the experience; it is a good thing. Babysitters are for people who ignore guides and may end up hurting themselves because they don't know how to listen. We all know who these people are.

To conclude, I really felt I had to lay this out before someone blamed me for some stupid mother fucking jumping out of a window while tripping on mushrooms. Don't do the things I talk about if you're going to fuck up, Ok!? For fucks sake, psychedelics are for grown ups, if you're too fucking stupid to know the difference then stay the fuck away! Otherwise, knock yourself out, I'll see you on the other side. I know this is subjective, but so is everything else, KMA.

Who Has Gone Before Me: Trip Report Reviews

Ok, so the point here is information sharing with regards to the mushroom experience. Soon I'll get more into sharing my own experiences, but I think it's important to acknowledge the community at large, and I think the best way to do this is by reviewing here what I've found around the net. I'll be reviewing trip reports. Sounds like fun yea?

Well our first trip report comes to us from Erowid, entitled A Fucking Awful First Trip is Not ALL Bad by Milkman sTan. Essentially it is this guy's first experience on half an eighth he split with his cousin sometime in 1999.

My cousin and I decided to trip for the first time the night before a Phish concert. We assumed we would find more drugs, when we'd get there. He and I WERE good friends prior to the trip...

He and I had picked up an eigth of shrooms. We had been told by the person who sold us the shrooms, that you shouldn't take a person who flips out to the hospital unless they are comatose or violent, because the hospital can't speed the drugs out of your system. You must wait it out.

This reads like a fairly typical first experience from someone with no experience, doing it without having anyone else with any experience around, and while ignoring the good advice of the (I assume) one person with any experience that they had talked to before embarking on this trip. Of course this begs the question, why did I pick this trip report? I picked it because it is so typical. This is the kind of trip report you read where the person comes back and says, "I had no idea what I was doing, my [crazy] friend and I took this drug, and crazy shit happened." In other words, while we're grateful to have people go through this experience and be willing to share it, but if the most we can get from that is: hospitals are awful places to trip and crazy shit can happen if you eat mushrooms, then I don't think it is particularly useful. Sorry.

We began the evening with a good start. We didn't drive and we didn't get into any hostile situations, until he 'came down early'. I was fucking nuts and had been all evening. It hadn't been a problem, but I was acting very oddly. I didn't know who my parents were. I was making no sense. I lost touch with the greater part of reality. No real visual halucinations ('cept tracers), just raw confusion. However, my cousin was the one to panic. He was afraid I was O.D.ing or I was permanently nuts, and he drove me to the hospital.

It's impressive to me that people can lose their minds this much on half an eighth. I know it's possible, I've seen it in first timers that I have babysat, but I'm skeptical that it's all the mushroom and not also largely a psychosomatic response: "I feel really weird, I ate mushrooms, the mushrooms are making me feel weird, omg this is really weird and I'm going to freak out, omg I'm freaking out now, ahhh."

My cousin kindly informed the hospital that I was overdosing on shrooms. They led me to the Emergency Room where they tried make me lie down on a table; they were planning to pump my stomach, unbeknownst to me. I resisted. They insisted. A struggle involving swearing, biting, much thrashing 'bout, and a good half dozen people including doctors, security guards, and nurses who forced me down on the table.

Thank you for this! This raises the exact point I'm trying to address, and that is, "Most people have no fucking clue when it comes to mushrooms." Where do you even start to describe what's wrong here? First, the cousin totally ruined everything by assuming the mushrooms were doing the worst thing possible: kill someone. Most of us don't have access to the amount of mushrooms it would take to overdose. Second, the hospital is treating this poor guy like he's in a PCP rage! A half dozen people, including security guards, who have to force this guy onto a table? What the hell do they think is going to happen, he'll turn into a werewolf and eat everyone? And then they tie him down, pump his stomach, and sedate him! Come on! If he is already tripping that much, his body has absorbed the active ingredients, and all a stomach pump is going to do is agitate the situation.

So yea, this is a trip report where roughly a dozen people who have no clue about mushrooms encounter a young man who is very well acclimated to experiencing strong effects from psychedelics. They basically ALL freak out because no one knows what the fuck is going on or how to handle it. I mean shit, they punish the guy right there on the spot for doing something any curious human would! They strap him to a table, pump his stomach, and inject him with a powerful sedative, and the poor guy was tripping through the entire experience. That is fucking torture in my book. This is why it is important to develop a better understanding of mushrooms.

I tripped again, under more supervised circumstances (with experienced trippers and steady rolling friends) to prove to myself that I would have been fine without the hospital's help. I went nuts again, but all went well, I merely learned I have a great susceptability to shrooms, and I have experimented with many other hallucinogens (LSD, anti-histamines (Benadryll/Dramamine), DXM, Estacy, and Morning Glory seeeds.) since then, and had a damn fine time, too. I still trip off shrooms; I have learned to survive the confusion that ensues, plus it is cheaper because I require less. I also learned very strong coping skills. Oh, well. What doesn't kill you only makes you stranger... Er, I mean stronger.

At least it has a happy ending (despite the fact he missed his Phish show). This could very well have been the baptism of an intrepid psychonaut, destined for beautiful, mind expanding experiences. Props to Milkman sTan for pulling through this one and deciding it was worth a second chance.

Now this is what I would consider a very conventional trip report. I say conventional because it is described in terms of the conventional, it reads like a police report more than a trip report. There is very little said about the experience itself and that is what the point of a trip report is supposed to be! I'm not sure any of us are particularly interested in what it would be like to lose your shit on mushrooms and get hauled to the emergency room by our dip shit friends. I'm only marginally interested in how the guy reacted to the mushrooms; yes it was intense and it made you temporarily insane, that's what they do. What I want to know is, how did the mushrooms react to all this? What did the mushrooms think about Milkman sTan and a trip to the hospital? This, in my mind, is what a trip report should be. I know it's a tough requirement, but we're talking about the report of an internal experience, and so expressing it in terms of the external, convention world really misses the point. I won't fault the Milkman for this though, he was new to this, and someone should have taught him better.