Psychedelic trip

How to Prepare for a Psychedelic Trip

“A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of spacetime dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures.”

The Psychedelic Experience

This article was originally published on April 15, 2014, and has been republished in 2023 with new info and images.

This is an extension to my earlier post Psychedelic Mushrooms and You, which covered the process of finding, identifying, drying, and storing magic mushrooms found in the wild. That guide was written with the intention of making psychedelics more readily available to those seeking it with the hope that the information might open doors for those who were wanting to explore different planes of consciousness and not just get high for kicks. It also served the purpose of helping others become more capable in avoiding poisonous lookalikes, thus avoiding potential unnecessary deaths.

Psychedelics can be a real game changer as far as your life is concerned; they can be fun, exciting, playful, weird, tense, frightening, expanding, contracting and everything else on the spectrum. At times taking psychedelics can be like putting your mind under under a microscope, or plugging it into an amplifier – it can and probably will confront you with yourself, and this can either enlighten or frighten the shit out of you depending on your level of preparation. It is for this reason that it is important to treat psychedelics with a great deal of respect, and one way of doing this is to mentally prepare yourself for the experience before you have it.

Note: a lot of the photos in this post were taken on an amazing mushroom trip I had in the spring of 2012, whilst road ‘tripping’ with two close friends through the great alpine road in a rented winnebago, which we affectionately named the ‘dojo’.

Contents

  1. Planning a Session
  2. Choosing a Psychedelic That’s Right For You
  3. Preparing for Takeoff
  4. Floating Downstream
psychedelics

Many guides have been written before this one, and most have been written with the same intention of aiding others on their own psychological or spiritual journey, but before the rise of the internet and the open sharing of information they mainly existed in the physical form as shamans, yogis, and psychotherapists. It is important to have the insight and support of such persons when embarking on any type of psychedelic voyage, but as these people are not so easily available to most people, written guides have emerged in their place as alternatives. This manual is in no way going to be hugely comprehensive, or even contain anything that you might not already know; it is simply an extra trail of breadcrumbs that I am offering to the internet, in the hope that it may help someone find their way home. The guide will integrate information from various sources, particularly Timothy Leary’s ‘The Psychedelic Experience’, and fuse it with my own personal history with psychedelic drugs, in particular psilocybin mushrooms, which I have (literally) grown to love.

clouds sky

Planning a Session

Before you even think about experimenting with psychedelic substances it is important to become conscious of your reasons for doing so. Maybe you haven’t given it much thought, and if that’s the case now is a good time to brainstorm. Just like you are supposed to have a query in mind before you consult the I Ching, so too should you have a goal outlined before you consult a psychedelic drug. If you have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish beforehand then you are more likely to achieve it. Hinduism suggests four motives for pursuing any activity, and the list works within the context of this guide.

  1. For increased personal power, intellectual understanding, sharpened insight into self and culture, improvement of life situation, accelerated learning, professional growth.
  2. For duty, help of others, providing care, rehabilitation, rebirth for fellow men.
  3. For fun, sensuous enjoyment, aesthetic pleasure, interpersonal closeness, pure experience.
  4. For transcendence, liberation from ego and space-time limits; attainment of mystical union.

Consult the above list and decide which is the main force driving your desire to experiment with psychedelics. If you will be with a group of people then it’s important to all agree on a motivation for the trip, or at the very least be aware of each other’s personal motivations. It should also be decided whether one wishes to have an introverted or extroverted psychedelic experience.

An introverted experience involves the self being involved with internal phenomena such as thoughts, closed eye hallucinations, energy patterns, vibrations, biological forms etc, while an extroverted experience draws its attention towards external objects such as nature, people, open eyed hallucinations, perception warps etc.

To have an extroverted trip it’s useful to bring certain items that will help guide your awareness to the external world, things such as candles, pictures, fruit, or better yet just bring yourself to nature. For the introverted trip try to eliminate all external stimuli, objects, sounds, movement etc. Close your eyes and meditate.

If your companions are not aware of your motivations then they might unintentionally get in the way of you having a good time and vice versa.

sand mandala

Now before I continue with the guide I will list the pros and cons of psychedelic drugs as outlined in Ram Dass’ book ‘Be Here Now’. Ram Dass, before pursuing the spiritual trip in India, was a psychotherapist who had ingested various psychedelic substances over 300 times, he also co authored Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience. So I guess you could say he is a bit of an expert on the subject. Note that these pros/cons are specifically for individuals using psychedelics for spiritual or psychological/introspective purposes, not for recreation.

The ‘pros’ of psychedelics are as follows:

  1. For a person deeply attached to any finite reality which he takes to be absolute, the psychedelics can, under proper conditions, help him to break out of the imprisoning  model created by his own mind.
  2.  The use of psychedelics can provide experiences which in the short term strengthen your faith in the possibility of enlightenment sufficiently to pursue systematic purification (which ultimately will, of course, include giving up psychedelics). They often serve this function even though the glimpse they give may only be of a low astral plane.
  3. Carefully programmed psychedelic sessions can have significant therapeutic value in providing new perspectives for areas of strong attachment. That is, for a person who is caught, for example, in strongly learned oral or sexual habits, a psychedelic session can provide a moment of transcending these habits, and thus experiencing the possibility of alternative reactions. This experience will be temporary, for you are merely overriding the desires which feed the habits in the first place. However, the experience may give leverage to your work with these strong drive areas.
  4. The deepest psychedelic experiences allow one to transcend polarities and thus get beyond fears of death, or entrapments in the guilt created by attachment to the polarity of good and evil.

The ‘con’s of psychedelics are as follows:

  1. You still come down. The experience is not permanent. Coming down brings despair.
  2. Because the psychedelic agent is external to yourself, its use tends to subtlely reinforce in you a feeling that you are not enough. Ultimately, of course, at the end of the path you come to realize that you have been Enough all the way along.
  3. The intensity with which the psychedelics show you ‘more’ makes you greedy to be done before you are ready. This attaches you to the experience of ‘getting high’ which, after a period of time, becomes a dead end. The goal of the path is to BE high, not GET high.
  4. Many people who use psychedelics primarily experience astral planes where their ego is present. Thus they often attempt to use the powers that are available in such an astral plane in the service of their own ego. This creates additional karma for them – for it is action which comes out of attachment. Many messianic trips are of this nature. Sometimes such individuals get stuck at one or another astral plane and lose contact with the gross physical plane.

    In the West such beings are usually hospitalized until they find their way back to the physical plane. Of course, what in fact has happened is that they have not gone far enough. For the psychiatrist is attached to the physical plane (denying the reality of other planes) in the same way that the patient is attached to the astral plane (denying the reality of other planes including the physical). The only true reality includes all these planes and is beyond them all at the same time. This is know as the paradox of Mahamudra – the paradox of two-in-one.
  5. Using violent methods as one’s upaya (method), such as strong psychedelics or kundalini yoga, severe fasts etc., lead to an uneveness in the individual’s vibrations. This creates waves in the environment because the person is not quite able to keep it all together. You should be able to remember your zip code even as you drift in intergalactic ecstacy. Keeping it all together is hard.
  6. Psychedelics are, for the most part, illegal. This means that in order to use them you must break the law. Breaking the law involves risks which create anxiety and paranoia. Anxiety and paranoia are not good states of mind in which to pursue one’s sadhana (spiritual work). Furthermore, breaking the law means that you must function within the polarity of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Only a very advanced being can do this without attachment.

Choosing a Psychedelic That’s Right For You

Psilocybe subaeruginosa magic mushrooms

Fortunately you have a few choices here, all of which have their own unique characteristics which may better suit your personality and expectations. The most commonly used psychedelic substances are:

  • LSD
  • Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms)
  • Mescaline (Cactus – Peyote, San Pedro, or Peruvian Torch)
  • DMT (Ayahuasca vine or extract)
  • Marijuana
  • MDMA (Ecstacy)
  • Research Chemicals (2CB, 2CE etc)

This guide will be focusing on magic mushrooms as they are, at least for me, easier to acquire, and therefore form the bulk of my experience; however, most of what applies to magic mushrooms also spills over to other psychedelic chemicals and plants.

Marijuana is the most popular of these, and yes it is considered to be a psychedelic. If you have never had a psychedelic experience on marijuana then you either haven’t smoked enough or haven’t smoked a quality strain, but with that said it is generally of a lower intensity than the other hard psychedelics on the list. LSD is the most popular of these stronger psychedelics, and is a liquid usually taken orally through paper blotters, sugar cubes etc and in doses of 100-500ug (micrograms), it can also be absorbed through the skin. Effects typically last 8-12 hours.

Psilocybin is most often consumed from fresh or dried mushrooms but it is also possible to come across a liquid extract. The amount of psilocybin necessary depends on the species as different species naturally contain different amounts of psilocybin – 20-30mg of this compound is usually taken and effects typically last 4-6 hours.

Mescaline is either taken orally from an extract, or straight from either a Peyote, San Pedro, or Peruvian Torch cactus – 300 – 500mg is sufficient; effects typically last 8-12 hours. DMT is either consumed orally along with an MAOI, in an Amazonian Ayahuasca brew (consumed in a ritualistic ceremony conducted by a Shaman), or it is smoked or injected. 15-60mg is the typical dose range. 50-60mg of DMT injected intramuscularly produces an experience approximately equivalent to 500ug of LSD but with a 30 minute duration. Smoking and injecting DMT provide much shorter trips (10-30 minutes), while eating it can produce a longer trip (3+ hours).

Now onto the magic mushrooms.

magic mushrooms

Dosage

1.0 – 3.5 grams dried, 10 – 30 grams fresh. Please refer to the Dosage Calculator to decide on an adequate dosage for the plateau you want to reach. These numbers are only an estimation as there is no way of knowing how much you will need to reach a certain level. This is because not only do mushrooms vary in potency, individuals also vary both physically and mentally, and each experience is different depending on the set and setting. 3.5 grams is by no means the max threshold, it is possible to eat as much as 10 or more grams dried. But these are ‘heroic’ doses that are not for the uninitiated. Note that re dosing with magic mushrooms doesn’t have the same effect as with most drugs, such as ecstacy – taking a second dose after the first one has already kicked in will typically not ‘double up’ the effects, but only increase the length of the first dose.

Length of Trip

About 5-6 hours (half the length of a typical LSD trip) – not too short, not too long… juust right! 🙂

Compatible Drugs

Marijuana is the best drug to mix with psychedelic mushrooms as they complement each other very nicely. A little bit can be smoked beforehand to ease any nerves you might have, and also to smooth the transition. Smoking at the peak of a trip will intensify it, but won’t taint the experience at all. Smoking at the end of a trip might bring on a second peak, but a shorter and less intense one. If one is terrified of ‘freaking out’ it is useful to have some tranquillisers such as alprazolam (xanax) or diazepam (valium) handy in case of an emergency.

Often the knowledge that it is available if needed is sufficient to ease any anxiety about having a bad trip. If someone in your party falls into this category you may tell them you have tranquillisers on hand if necessary even if you don’t have any. A placebo drug, like a sugar pill or a panadol, will have a similar effect on such a person during a psychedelic crisis as they will convince themselves that they have taken something to calm themselves down and their thoughts (the culprit of the bad trip) will follow suit.

MDMA is another good option, mixing the two together is known as hippie flipping, and will colour the mushroom trip with more intense body sensations and feelings of euphoria. In my opinion magic mushrooms are pretty euphoric on their own. This might be because both MDMA and psilocybin produce serotonin (neurotransmitters in the brain that are responsible for happiness – depression is a result of a lack of serotonin for example), though they produce it in different ways. MDMA floods the brain with extra serotonin, while psilocybin binds to serotonin receptors and mimics them.

MDMA lasts about 4 hours and takes 30 minutes to kick in, so take the MDMA about an hour after ingesting the mushrooms. Also make sure you get pure MDMA powder, or at least quality ecstasy pills (look them up on pillreports. Taking ecstasy that hasn’t been tested for quality beforehand, either by yourself or others, is usually a bad idea as they can sometimes be cut with too much Speed, Ketamine or the nasty Piperazine, substances which will colour your trip the wrong colours. Most people prefer to mix MDMA with acid, which is called candy flipping. Another possible combination is known as a jedi flip, which is MDMA + Mushrooms + LSD, but that’s just getting to be a little ridiculous.

Two other drugs commonly mixed are Ketamine and Nitrous Oxide. Ketamine, being a strong dissociative drug (dissimilar to psychedelics, other dissociatives are PCP, DXM and Datura), can force your trip into an internal mind fuck if you take enough, while lower doses might slow things down a bit, as though the air is slightly liquid. Nitrous will blow your head up like a balloon and greatly intensify the trip, but it is very short lasted. My advice: just stick to the mushrooms if it’s your first time and maybe a little bit of pot if it’s your second. You have your whole life to experiment.

mdma ecstasy white hearts

Preparing for Takeoff

preparation tiger
“Psychedelic chemicals are not drugs in the usual sense of the word. There is no specific reaction, no expected sequence of events, somatic or psychological.” – The Psychedelic Experience

How psychedelic drugs will effect you have more to do with your physical and psychological environment than the drugs themselves. Of course, certain psychedelic drugs and doses carry with them a particular territory, but whether or not you find a welcoming party in that territory depends entirely on set and setting. These are the two most important words in any trippers vocabulary – ask anyone experienced with these substances and they will nod their heads agreeingly. Timothy Leary explains set much better than I can, and so I will quote from The Psychedelic Experience.

Set – “There are two aspects of set: long-range and immediate.

Long-range set refers to the personal history, the enduring personality. The kind of person you are – your fears, desires, conflicts, guilts, secret passions – determines how you interpret and manage any situation you enter, including a psychedelic session. Perhaps more important are the reflex mechanisms used when dealing with anxiety – the defenses, the protective maneuvers typically employed. Flexibility, basic trust, religious faith, human openness, courage, interpersonal warmth, creativity, are characteristics which allow for fun and easy learning. Rigidity, desire to control, distrust, cynicism, narrowness, cowardice, coldness, are characteristics which make any new situation threatening. Most important is insight. No matter how many cracks in the record, the person who has some understanding of his own recording machinery, who can recognize when he is not functioning as he would wish, is better able to adapt to any challenge – even the sudden collapse of his ego.

The most careful preparation would include some discussion of the personality characteristics and some planning with the guide as to how to handle expected emotional reactions when they occur.

Immediate set refers to the expectations about the session itself. Session preparation is of critical importance in determining how the experience unfolds. People tend naturally to impose their personal and social game perspectives on any new situation. Careful thought should precede the session to prevent narrow sets being imposed. Medical expectations. Some ill-prepared subjects unconsciously impose a medical model on the experience. They look for symptoms, interpret each new sensation in terms of sickness/health, place the guide in a doctor-role, and, if anxiety develops, demand chemical rebirth – i.e., tranquilizers. Occasionally one hears of casual, ill-planned, non-guided sessions which end in the subject demanding to be hospitalized, etc. It is even more problem-provoking if the guide employs a medical model, watches for symptoms, and keeps hospitalization in mind to fall back on, as protection for himself.”

It should be clear to you now, if it wasn’t already, that psychedelics are a lot different to other drugs you may have had experience with in the past. They require a lot more care and planning, and should only ever be taken when your head is clear and free of confusion or paranoia. Never take psychedelic drugs to escape or to get high… I know that sounds crazy as those are two valid reasons for someone to take drugs, but psychedelics aren’t drugs in the usual sense of the word, instead they are powerful tools for introspection and spiritual growth. They are classified under their own special umbrella term called ‘entheogens’, which roughly translates to as ‘generating the divine within’.

The effects have the ability to take you out of your body, and to even take you out of the physical plane into other planes of consciousness that you never knew existed. Your mind is capable of some far out things, as you no doubt appreciate from all of the dreams and nightmares you’ve had, but you will soon discover with psychedelics that it’s capable of even stranger things. Psychedelics, when used right, are quite the opposite to falling asleep, it is more like waking upI know it’s cliché. (I also know it’s cliché to say ‘it’s cliché’, but is it cliché to say it’s cliché to say it’s cliché? I don’t know.)

The more careful attention you bring to your set the better the experience will be. Taking psychedelics is like holding a mirror in front of your brain so it can see itself for the first time – it will magnify anything you are holding onto internally, and this can be a liberating experience as it has the opportunity to confront you with issues which cannot be ignored for any longer, or it can be very scary. Don’t let me freak you out, most of the time psychedelics will not do this, or if they do, it will be in a fairly gentle way. If you approach the experience with good intentions, and a clear head, you will most likely have one of the best experiences of your life. Countless psychiatric studies have been conducted with psychedelics in the past, and even recently, and all of these studies have pointed towards tremendous spiritual experiences had by the participants.

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A good way to prepare yourself mentally is to allow yourself three whole days for the voyage, that is one day before the trip, one day for the trip, and one day to decompress after the trip. It goes without saying that all three of these days should be completely free of stress, or at least as free from it as possible. Call in sick at work, tell your boss you have lupus; tell everyone you know you’re going to Africa and will be back in three days; unplug your home phone; put a sign on your front door that says ‘Gone Fishing’ or something. The first day is to prepare for the trip, so on this day it is advisable to abstain from eating greasy foods, and to instead eat simple foods such as fruits, nuts, vegetables, breads, juices, water, milk etc. It’s also beneficial to meditate on this day, in order to get your head clear. If you have never meditated before then I have written up two simple meditations that you can use, they are:

  1. Anapana-sati meditation
  2. Hams-sa meditation
buddha anapanasati

You can also use either of these meditations on the day of the trip, and on the day after if you desire. Hell, just meditate every day. Get an early sleep the night before and aim to wake up early the next day. You want to be as fresh as you can because taking psychedelics isn’t comparable to smoking a joint after a long day of work. You can plan the day before, the day after, and the environment for the trip, but not the trip itself, as that is an aspect which you cannot, and should not attempt to control – you can guide it, yes, but don’t try to change it. A psychedelic experience is not a ball of clay that you can mould at your own leisure, you cannot enter the experience with a shopping list of things you must do in whatever order, and sensations you must feel.

Floating Downstream

space oddysey

Drop all expectations. As is suggested in the Psychedelic Experience, you should ‘turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream’. Struggle is the biggest enemy in all situations of life, and the psychedelic experience will teach you that important lesson every chance it gets. It is a harsh teacher. The majority of negative experiences had on psychedelics can be pinpointed to one trying to fight the effects of the drug. You cannot fight it, you can only merge with it. Fighting against the current is only going to create agony for you, whereas surrendering to the flow of the water and letting it take you where it wants to take you will require no struggle on your part.

Don’t buy into those stories of people taking acid and coming out of the trip thinking they are a glass of orange juice, it’s all brainwashing rubbish that you need to erase from your head. You will wash up on shore eventually, maybe covered with a bit of seaweed, but you’ll get there in one piece. Unless of course you have a predisposition to schizophrenia, in which case you might flop up on the shore as some sort of demented devolved fish thing.

Setting – With that all said it’s still very important to consider the environment you choose to have a psychedelic experience in. Where you are physically plays a big role in where you’ll be mentally. Even the most neurotic person will find themselves relieved of their mental hangups when watching a beautiful sunset. The place you choose to trip not only influences your set, but also plays a part in shaping the nature of the trip. The two most important aspects of setting to consider are:

  1. Outside or Inside
  2. Day time or Night time

It has been suggested that for first timers it is advisable to begin your trip indoors as opposed to outdoors, and while this may definitely be true for stronger psychedelics such as DMT, or high doses of LSD or psilocybin, for small to moderate doses of magic mushrooms I believe outdoors is the best place to start. Magic mushrooms, compared to other psychedelics, are a lot more ‘earthey’ and grounded in nature. Being amidst nature is therefore highly recommended as it just feels right when you’re on mushrooms. After you have experienced them outdoors it is worth experiencing them indoors as well as they both have very different flavours.

Whether you trip in the day or night is another factor to consider. Both of these settings produce different and unique experiences, especially when taken outdoors. I find that outdoor night sessions tend to have a more alien vibe, while outdoor day sessions have a more natural vibe. Alien is maybe a poor choice of word, trippy will do. Generally, in my experience, everything is strange at night (not necessarily in a bad way), while everything is exciting in the day (not necessarily in a good way?).

In the night you are surrounded by a mysterious darkness; the sky is blanketed with stars and the moon casts a luminous glow on the environment, especially water, which shimmers with light. This tends to produce more surreal feelings within you, feelings that everything is unknown and known at the same time. You might find yourself approaching situations with both childlike curiosity and adult like caution simultaneously. If you are planning on having an outdoors night session then it is advisable to do so with good company. Be with a group of 1 or 2 others and always have someone close by in case you get lost in the darkness. If you have a pool, or any large enough body of water available to you, it is recommended by me that you take a dip in the water and wade around – so long as you have someone to watch you and ensure you don’t drown, preferably someone sober or at least able to handle the drugs effects.

The first time I did this was in Indonesia: the water, which was usually freezing cold, felt like warm, thick oil around my skin. It enveloped my body like liquid velvet and I felt like a candle melting into a puddle of wax. The sensations were absolutely incredible, and I’ll never forget that moment. Another thing to do is sit in front of a fire, you can watch those for hours when you are tripping. Also looking up at the stars is always amazing, especially if you are camping somewhere with little light pollution so the stars are clearly visible. Even better when the strip of Milky Way is visible. Imagine that, seeing the Milky Way Galaxy on psychedelics! Standing with your head pointed towards the sky, while spinning as fast as you can in a circle, then dropping on your back to watch the sky is something that needs to be seen to be believed. All the stars spin long after you’ve dropped back to the ground and the whole sky explodes with light!

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Day sessions have a completely different vibe to them than their night time counterparts. In the day everything is visible because everything is covered with sunlight, obviously. The first thing you’ll notice when the effects kick in is that your vision is greatly enhanced – everything you look at is with a newly developed crystal-sharp clarity. You can see much clearer with your peripheral vision as well. The experience is more child like; everything is exciting and new and fun. It is like being born again and seeing the world for the first time. If you are lucky enough to be in nature then you will find yourself really connecting to the vast beauty that it always is, and that you are usually unaware of. It may seem like nature is putting on a show for you; you will hit yourself on the head for never noticing clouds and puddles and things which you never usually direct your attention to.

You will fall on your hands and knees and examine a tiny insect crawling on the ground, and you will empathise with that insect, you will think ‘I know how it feels little dude, but don’t give up!‘, and you will think about how one or two steps for you is no big deal, but for the insect is a tremendous journey. Nature will come to life, almost literally – you can feel its presence – and can even see the trees breathing. Clouds will take on a liquid quality, morphing and splitting like atoms. Once I looked at the clouds on mushrooms and they looked like great snowy mountain peaks, the Himalayas perhaps, and suddenly I wondered whether I was actually sitting on the floor looking up at the sky or sitting on the sky looking down at the Himalayan mountains! A wind might blow and all the trees will swing and dance to a very slow primal rhythm, your heartbeat will match this rhythm and you will breathe in deeply and exhale a torrent of euphoria. You almost get a sensation of nostalgia, like you have experienced this unity with nature once before, but have merely forgotten – you may find yourself feeling home, is the only way to word it.

You might not be a hippy, but after experiencing an outdoor day trip you hopefully might understand or even empathise why they act… a little weird in nature. If you decide to trip outdoors, whether in the day or the night, it is definitely a good idea to take your shoes off. You don’t want anything to come between you and the earth while you are tripping, and it is a liberating feeling to run around barefoot. Free yourself temporarily from the rhythm and routine of adulthood.

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Time of day plays less of a role in indoor sessions for the obvious reason of artificial lighting. When indoors it is important to make sure you are somewhere safe, preferably somewhere you have been before and feel comfortable in, and somewhere which is unlikely to be disturbed during your experience. Turn all of your phones off, and try to ensure you won’t get any surprise visits. When indoors it is likely you will have a lot of perception warps; sensations such as feeling like you are too big to fit in the room you’re in, or the feeling of sinking into a couch etc. I have had experiences where I could actually feel the energy present in particular rooms. Perhaps this is what feng shui is all about, but when you enter a room on psychedelics you may feel that it has a totally different personality to other rooms in the house, and immediately you will notice the rooms presence change your mental set. Some rooms feel very cosy and warm, while others feel tense and cold, and these feelings remain constant no matter how many times you enter or leave those rooms. It’s almost like when you walk into a room you are meeting a person for the first time, and you might find yourself walking around the house like you are a prospective buyer carefully inspecting it.

When tripping indoors it is wise to have mattresses and couches available so that one can comfortably end up on any of these if they choose. If you are tripping with a group then it is important, whether it be indoors, outdoors, day or night, to choose a location which will serve as your base. If indoors this will usually be the living room, and this is the place where you can be confident you will find others to hang around, and the energy of this area will definitely be noticeable, and hopefully pleasant. If the whole trip is a song, then the base room should be the catchy feel-good chorus. If indoors it is also necessary to have rooms that one can find seclusion in if they choose to have it, as sometimes all you want is to be alone. When outdoors this is all set up by nature, and so the person can simply venture off on their own and find solace, and return to their prescribed base camp when they feel ready to return.

ram dass meditating

The biggest difference between inside and outside sessions, which you may wish to consider, is the inclusion of music. When you are inside it is nice to have music playing, as it can definitely shape the experience for the better. But when you are outdoors it is less important to play music, as nature provides its own soundtrack which needs not be covered up by your favourite band. When tripping outdoors, if you would like music at some stage, then you should bring an mp3 player and headphones. This way you can listen to music whenever you feel like it, and quickly stop the music if you need to. Also, the sound of music coming through headphones is a lot deeper than listening through speakers. It will feel as though a concert is playing inside your head, the music flowing through your entire being. Close your eyes and get lost in the current of closed eye hallucinations. I like to listen to long improvised pieces of music when on psychedelics, songs like Dark Star by the Grateful Dead do the trick for me.

rainbow
Mushroom trip – the rainbow (Dave, me and Josh)

It’s important to remember that your taste in music isn’t necessarily everyone elses taste in music, so if tripping with others, you should each communicate your music preferences so that everybody gets a bit of what they want playing. Nothing sucks more when you’re tripping than having to listen to music you don’t like all night.

That’s about all I have to write on the subject for now, as I have more psychedelic excursions I will update and possibly expand this post. In the meantime, here are some useful links to peruse in your own leisurely time.

http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/psychedelic_crisis_faq.shtml

http://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms_faq.shtml

https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/psychedelic_experience_faq.shtml

http://www.erowid.org/archive/hyperreal/drugs/psychedelics/leary/psychedelic.html#4

zen enlightenment

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