Photo: Eddi 07

When we’re traveling, our dreams go into overdrive, trying to keep up with all the new experiences. Maybe it’s the fact that we don’t know the language, or that sleeping under a rock shelter in the desert isn’t all we thought it would be. In many cases, culture shock is behind this powerful dream generator.

These dreams come to us thanks to the heightened social anxiety and poor sleeping conditions that are part of the adventure of seeing the world. I have also found in my travels that culture shock activates lucid dreaming.

What is lucid dreaming? It’s those fleeting moments in a dream when you know you’re in the middle of an imaginary world. It’s the realization that the cosmos as you know it is an illusion, and that anything is possible.

Although lucid dreaming has been popularized as dream control, it’s actually a state of mind cultivated for thousands of years by Eastern mystics such as Tibetan Buddhists, Indian Yogis, and Islamic Sufis. In a lucid dream, you can make choices, investigate what you wish, and be more open than in waking life to new experiences.

Lucid Dreaming Triggers

Photo: mark sebastian

Lucid dreaming happens spontaneously when the conditions are right. Conditions are often “right” in loud hostels and on sandy beaches.

Disturbed sleep, jet lag, language barriers, and social nervousness activate the parts of the brain that are involved in becoming self-aware in our dreams.

If you reinforce these with a strong intention to become aware in your dream – such as by journaling before bed – you may find yourself awake and aware in your sleep that night.

Also, taking a nap after a sleepless night or an evening of drinking margaritas increases the odds of a lucid dream. The brain is starved for dreaming sleep, and will often slip straight into a dream immediately after you lie down. One minute, you’re closing your eyes, and the next, you’re flying over the Amazon river.

Spirit Visitations and Sleep Paralysis

Culture shock-induced lucid dreaming can get spooky too. Another side effect of jet lag, sleep deprivation, mixed with heightened social anxiety, promotes sleep paralysis, a kind of lucid dream where you the body feels paralyzed as you begin to fall asleep.

Sometimes, this is accompanied by hallucinations that we project onto our sleeping space. The most common vision is of an intruder in the room, and in some cases, a scary cloaked creature or “demon” who sits on our chest. This is the incubus, a malady recognized as early as Aristotle’s time, and interpreted in the Middle Ages as witchcraft.

Photo: Torley

Many cultures have folklore and ghost stories about sleep paralysis hallucinations, especially the indigenous cultures in the Pacific Rim, including Indonesia, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest of the US, as well as Central and South America.

In some of these cultures, the intruder can be an ancestral spirit; in others, it is interpreted as the work of black magic or a rival shaman.

If you are traveling in these regions that have folklore, such as Malay, Cambodia, or Peru, sleep paralysis encounters may take the form of the culture you are visiting. For example, in Hawaii, sleep paralysis is believed to be caused by supernatural “night marchers.”

Despite what Western science tells us, these experiences can make us question the role of dreams in connecting us to reality. The movie Avatar explores this theme as well, in between the 3D explosions and smurf love. Director James Cameron based the “tree of life” ceremony loosely on Indonesian shamanism, an area well known for its powerful dreamers and healers.

Awareness of the possibilities in lucid dreaming while traveling can enhance any trip. You may want to explore ancient ruins in your mind, combat homesickness by reconnecting with your family during a nap, or practice your language skills within the safety of the dream.

There’s also the possibility of tapping into those local visions that represent the underworld of the landscape you are visiting.

Respecting the Culture of Dreams

Just like in waking life, you want to be respectful of the dream entities that approach you, give rather than take, and have sincere gratitude for their hospitality. Lucid dreaming is a gift of culture shock, and it can help with integrating your experiences.

If nothing else, sharing your weird dreams will give you something to talk about at the hostel in the mornings, and help break traveler’s isolation.

Have you experienced lucid dreaming while traveling? Share your experiences below.

Community Connection

Wondering how to craft a dream journal? Then check out Joshua Johnson’s guide to Keeping a Dream Journal. Don’t forget to tune into those “awake” dreams, especially What Was Your Childhood Travel Dream?

Photo: Creativity103

Things don’t look good for those who get caught bringing drugs into the Gaza Strip.

With nearly a third of the 300 prisoners in the main jail in Gaza detained due to drug offenses, a 10-year sentence is apparently not enough of a “deterrent for this lucrative trade,” at least according to Hamas and this article on Haaretz.com.

While Mexico legalized small amounts of pot and other narcotics in the “War on Drugs”, Hamas has decided to impose hard labor and the possibility of the death penalty on those caught smuggling drugs in through tunnel trade. It seems the tunnel trade in and of itself is officially sanctioned by Hamas as a way of defying Israel’s blockade, but it is much harder to control the flow of goods than through a normal customs process.

Recently seized contraband include washing machines full of hash and the Opiate pain-killer Tramadol. Ecstasy is another popular drug with the young, and ends up being sold in high schools.

It seems drug smuggling has surged in the past few months, or “increased alarmingly” to quote the article. Why could this be? Anything to do with the daily warfare and struggle for survival that both the Israelis and Palestinians must face? Hmmm.

Survival Instinct

When you take away people’s ability to live a safe and secure life, they are going to do their best to get to a safe and secure place (or forget where they are altogether). Even the article notes:

Tramadol has been a big seller…among those of the population of 1.5 million who have found solace in drugs from after Israel’s three-week military onslaught last January, launched to stop Hamas firing rockets into Israel.

Though they are also sure to add: “The motivations of some drug-users are also banal: to banish boredom, improve concentration or for sexual enjoyment.” Ok, yes, that’s a given in any culture.

But along with the fact that the need to mentally escape is inevitable, there is also the tiny issue of excruciatingly high rates of unemployment and poverty rates in the Gaza (this article puts them at 50%). Where there is poverty, drugs will be sold, if only for monetary purposes. Really, it’s survival on both the economic and psychological fronts.

So, they’re gonna stop smugglers with the possibility of the death penalty. Good idea. Aren’t most people there facing that on a daily basis anyway?

Do you think taking a harsher approach to drug smuggling will work? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: digitalbob8

Drugs certainly hold the possibility of being mind-expanders, at least for some people.

And many travelers have had the opportunity to partake in an illegal drug or two while visiting spiritually-enhancing areas, which also hold the potential of many years in an extremely scary foreign prison if caught.

But this guy goes above and beyond what few have done, or would ever contemplate doing. The British man, ‘Mr. A’ is reported to have taken 40,000 ecstasy pills over a nine-year period. The previously heaviest lifetime intake was 2,000.

Whoa.

Can’t imagine that was good for the brain, body, or spirit. According to doctors from London University, it wasn’t. The man stopped taking pills seven years ago, but still suffers from:

…severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw which often prevents him from opening his mouth.

And it seems like many of the symptoms are permanent. His short-term memory loss, including “the time, the day, what was in his supermarket trolley,” makes living life on a day-to-day basis a frighteningly hard task.

The Dark Side

Photo: azrainman

I think that most who have taken ecstasy, ranging from just once to more times than they would like to count, can still agree that 40,000 is a bit over the limit and would naturally cause trauma to the brain. But I’m a bit more interested in the why of choosing to ingest that massive amount.

Some people might just call this man crazy, off, mentally-deranged. Yet, something in me wonders if this is just an extreme example of what is happening for people all over the world.

A lack of connection – be it to community, self, or the spirit – pushes us, consciously or unconsciously, to search for that connection. For some, this can be a very positive experience, and as Jennifer Blair writes, can lead us to our soul place:

A soul place is an island, a building, a city, or a natural vista that speaks to you in a language unheard. It opens up a space within that you didn’t realize was closed.

For others, the drive may be toward darkness. From a traveler’s perspective, dark tourism, or “the practice of visiting sites related to death and suffering,” can put you face to face with the underbelly of humanity: genocide, natural disasters, terrorism, slavery, the effects of drugs on a community. These are the ugly parts of history that on certain levels, we all share.

And there are many things out there that can make us spiral further into the darkness, including drugs, alcohol, work, sex, TV – the list goes on. None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but it is when we come to depend on them to catch a glimpse of connection that we disconnect from that which we are searching for.

The key, according to many who are spiritually-inclined, is that we must fully and deeply look at our shadow, lest it take over. By shining a light on the darkness that is within each of us, it is no longer dark.

So I wonder, for this man and his 40,000 ecstasy pills (who has since dropped out of his doctor’s care), what shadow was he running from?

What do you think is behind this man’s ecstasy binge? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: Smoobs

I must admit, when I heard about the two deaths and 22 hospitalized at a sweat lodge near Sedona, Arizona this past weekend, I readjusted my long-held desire to be a part of one.

But reading further into the specifics of what happened made me, well, not so surprised that it happened.

First, as Joseph Bruchac, an expert on Native American traditions and author of The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends noted in the New York Times article about the accident, the number of people taking part in the ceremony at Angel Valley – 55 to 65 – far surpassed the 8 to 12 at a typical sweat lodge.

Bruchac said, “It means that all these people are fighting for the same oxygen.”

Also, a great deal of preparation goes into traditional sweat lodges, and they are usually made of “willow branches and covered in canvas or animal skins, and are not meant to be air-tight.” Authorities at the Angel Valley lodge noted this sweat lodge was covered in plastic and blankets.

A typical ceremony usually lasts an hour, and this one had clocked in at two hours before the organizers called 911.

Understanding the Process

This sweat lodge was led by self-help guru James Arthur Ray. His bio notes he:

…has studied and been exposed to a wide diversity of teachings and teachers – from his collegiate learning and the schools of the corporate world, to the ancient cultures of Peru, Egypt and the Amazon.

Photo: Jeff Kubina

If you take a look at his picture, it’s pretty clear that Ray is not Native American. I have no doubt that he has learned quite a bit about different cultures in his travels, as we all do.

But I have to question, is it right for a white man to lead a Native American ceremony?

After I read the book Coyote Medicine, I understood the complexities of building and running a proper sweat lodge, and how a shaman passes this information on to a shaman-in-training.

As Julie notes in the comments section on RightJuris.com:

Native Americans and ONLY Native Americans understand the entire process of a sweat lodge ceremony. This is their spirituality and their culture, NOT something we can easily adopt nor can we even begin to understand without extensive training BY a Native American traditionalist, and I mean EXTENSIVE.

Finally, the cost of the retreat is a bit suspect: $9,695 per person. On his site, Ray says participants will “experience a new technologically-enhanced form of meditation that creates new neurological pathways.”

While I do believe the last part is possible, a true Native-American ceremony would not cost that much. And unfortunately, deaths and injuries resulting from Ray’s negligence will make many condemn sweat lodges in general, and this will certainly hinder people from developing any “new neurological pathways.”

What do you think about a person who is not Native-American performing a traditional sweat lodge ceremony? Share your thoughts below.

Shaman / Photo: rokoto / Feature photo: hkoppdelaney

Magic mushrooms and other hallucinogenics have been used by cultures across the world for millennia, with early evidence (PDF) including Neolithic cave painting depictions in the Sahara that are thought to date back to 7000 BC.

As recent as 2005, the UK government legislated the use of magic mushrooms as a class A drug – possession could mean a prison term of up to 7 years, and dealing could mean life.

Many other countries, such as the US and Canada, also consider possession illegal.

Yet research from Johns Hopkins University reveals that magic mushrooms have a profound therapeutic effect: when they surveyed volunteers 14 months after they took the drug, most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience.

Two-thirds of them also said the drug had produced “one of the five most spiritually significant experiences they’d ever had.”

Accepting that there are dangers involved in their use hallucinogens for some people, I ask whether governments should rethink their stance on magic mushrooms. Should we allow them to be used to enlighten under controlled circumstances with experienced guides?

Bruce Parry and Tribe

In 2005 Bruce Parry’s traveled around the world to experience cultures still living in a traditional way. The series was first aired on the BBC as Tribe, and later shown in the US under the title, Going Tribal.

Bruce Parry / Photo: BBC/Indus

Parry lived with tribes in India, Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, Gabon, Mongolia and Brazil for a month each, and tried to integrate into the host societies as much as possible. The spiritual beliefs of each tribe were one of the most prominent aspects covered.

On the Venezuela/Brazil border, Parry lived with the Sanema tribe, who believe in a dream world with spirits all around them: in the animals, trees, rocks and water. Four out of five males in the tribe are shamans.

Guided by one of the shamans, Parry took part in an initiation ceremony, which included the consumption of a hallucinogenic called sakona, which is derived from the sap of the Virola tree.

In an interview about the series with Sam Wollaston in the Guardian, Parry talked about his views on hallucinogens:

“No, I don’t think we should all be taking acid. I think drugs are very dangerous. But I do think I learned from those two experiences. I really had an incredibly deep message that came to me. I’m not saying it came from some deity, but when you do lose your mind – if that’s what you want to call it – it’s a really interesting way of looking at the self.”

Wollaston summarised that Parry had talked about “having extra-ordinary revelations, seeing things in a totally different way, of becoming more connected to nature.”

Parry would continue his search in two more series of Tribe and on his journey from Andes to Amazon.

Government Clamps Down

Ironically, 2005 was also the year when the British government closed a loophole in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, making the selling and consumption of magic mushrooms a Class A crime along with heroin and cocaine.

In January that year, the National Statistician, Len Cook, had answered a question in the House of Commons with the following statistics on death from drugs in England and Wales during the previous decade: there had been one death (PDF) recorded as caused by magic mushrooms, compared to 5,737 from heroin/morphine and 582 from cocaine/crack.

Cigarettes, which are of course legal, are thought to have killed over one million people per decade in the last fifty years.

The government also liberalised the alcohol laws in 2005, allowing licensed establishments to open for 24 hours despite a growth in alcohol-related illnesses in the preceding years.

In a BBC article, critics of the ban say that the mushrooms are harmless to physical health and would only be bad for people with existing mental health problems.

“Obviously I would not suggest someone with schizophrenia took magic mushrooms but nor should they probably take alcohol,” said Chris Bovey, owner of online retailer Potseeds, based in Totnes, Devon.

The Reality Of Experience

Ultimately, there appear to be three types magic mushroom experiences:

• Some people do not enjoy the experience and never try it again.
• Some people take too much, either all at once or over a period of time and significantly alter their minds. This impact is rarely the case with magic mushrooms, and instead involves much stronger hallucinigens (like LSD).
• The vast majority of people have a good experience and learn something about themselves or the world around them. It entertains or enlightens.

As the participants in the John Hopkins study confirms:

“Fourteen months after taking the drug, 64 per cent of the volunteers said they still felt at least a moderate increase in well-being or life satisfaction, in terms of things like feeling more creative, self-confident, flexible and optimistic. And 61 per cent reported at least a moderate behaviour change in what they considered positive ways.”

There is a slight risk to hallucinogenics, but it is much less than most other drugs. I believe that under controlled circumstances such as a weekend with experienced guides most people will have the positive experience that Bruce Parry had on his tribal travels.

As Parry reveals, his journey ultimately opened his mind and inspired him to search for an alternative religious reality to the Christian belief he knew as a child:

“When I came back from expeditions, I had some experiences that made me readdress all that. I’d pretty much known all along that Christianity wasn’t for me. Ever since then, I’ve been on my own quest to find another truth.

I can’t read novels, but I do read books about cosmology, about astrophysics, about genetics. I’m interested in altered states of mind, and creation myths. It’s all part of the same thing – I want to know why we think what we think. Now, I’d describe myself as pandeist, reluctantly verging on atheist.”

What do you think of magic mushrooms? Should they be legalized and used under controlled conditions? Share your thoughts in the comments!

While clever, the animation is obviously highly selective in the historical dates it chooses. That said, there is still a strong argument for the legalization of the plant – check out an interview with pro-pot activist Rick Steves, and our Guide To Smoking Pot Around the World.

Enjoy the weekend!

We drove through the desert, miles of fissured ground and small geometric shrubs, our way repeatedly blocked by barbed wire fences, which necessitated countless u-turns.

I don’t know how our friends managed to find the correct place, since the desert offers no defining markers, but find our way we did.

We parked the car and piled out. “I’m scared’, whispered Suzie, as we kicked our heels outside, waiting for the others. “Me too,” I replied.

My friend gave us nervous first-timers a few pieces of information about the cactus we would shortly ingest.

“Peyote is a natural drug – you won’t get the sweaty palms and beating heart of the artificial powder drugs. It’s not dangerous in that way, but if you do feel bad, don’t worry, just do exactly what will make you feel better.”

“Also, the flavour tastes very strong. Never in my life have I tried anything as strong as peyote – it’s like eating the heart of the earth. So, it might make you throw up, but that’s normal. Peyote is a cure, it’s a way to cleanse yourself.”

Into The Desert

We made our way into the desert. After a few steps we encountered the first peyote button.

It was hidden under the meagre shade of one of the shrubs, impressed firmly into the ground – a few inches wide, with small clumps of hair scattered at regular intervals over a dark green surface.

“We can’t cut this one. This is our guide,” said my friend. “We’re going to separate and find our own peyote, and meet up by that tree over there. Don’t cut the peyote with a knife – use a sharp rock instead.”

We split up, and left alone I stopped and felt the silence of the desert, the type of silence you can’t find in the overstimulated urban lifestyle. And suddenly, I wasn’t scared anymore.

I found two buttons fairly quickly, and carried them across to the meeting point, ready to begin.

My friend was right. The buttons tasted disgusting. Our faces stretched into grimaces as we struggled to keep down the pulpy flesh, swallowing gulps of water and huge sugary slabs of Abuelita hot chocolate in an attempt to disguise the taste.

Afterwards, we sat under the shade of the tree, waiting, waiting. We had no idea how long it would take for the effects to take hold, or what would happen when they did.

First Signs

The world begins to wobble…suddenly we’re pacing around in the desert, unable to keep still. Everything is suddenly hilarious and I become hugely enamoured with my tinted sunglasses. “The world’s so bright like this,” I say.

We accompany the boys to the car, and they start pumping atmospheric drum and bass into the silence of the desert. We dance like Egyptians. And then forget why exactly we went to the car.

It takes a long time to gather ourselves and return to our spot, complete with video camera and tent.

And as we’re walking along through the desert, Suzie and I, clumped together and giggling, the peyote really begins to hit us.

The Trip

How do I begin to describe this? At the time I tried to write, my notebook ended up in a scrumpled heap on the desert floor as I occupied myself talking to the plants.

“Write about what?” I wrote. “The world as it shifts and changes before my eyes? The colours, the shapes…the sky pulsates like spider eyes, like milk in blue coffee…the horizon encircles us like chains of eyes.”

Eyes, I think, because every plant, every stone, everything had its own clearly visible, beautifully palpitating soul. We could see the beauty in everything. The cracks of the desert floor vibrated with intensity, and we could see how everything was connected to everything else by these physical vibrations.

Strangely enough, it was only us two girls that felt this. The boys struggled to put up the tent while Suzie and I lay in a loving heap of confused limbs on the floor and watched the sky.

“I can feel the pulse in this rock” Suzie breathed. “You’re lying on top of me”, I said. “Oh.”

We could see beautiful women beckoning to us and dancing among the clouds. Behind these beautiful, feminine shapes lay a faint grid of purple and green fractals, like the strange neon cacti that were scattered round the desert.

Multi-Sensory

Dancing with the fire / Phot Dani Redd

Afterwards, Suzie told me that she felt that Peyote (who does somehow, maintain a very tangible presence) had made love to every sense in her body. It was true.

We made different sounds for hours, ‘zzzzzz’, ‘ooooo’, and felt them vibrate in our mouths and echo across the desert. We ate grapes and slid the round globes round our mouths, gasping in awe as we crunched down and the juice ran down our throats – the most sensual eating experience I’ve ever had.

Peyote is like having a full-body orgasm, but one that isn’t connected to your sexual self, but to your spirit. It gave me the most heightened sensitivity I have ever experienced.

It got dark. The sun set and huge pulsating stars appeared in a clear black sky. Even without the peyote effect they would have looked beautiful, because there was no light pollution from nearby cities, no presence of people.

But the desert, however beautiful it is at night, gets very cold, and in the intensity of the day, we’d forgotten to gather firewood.

Absent ones

Various wood gathering expeditions (initiated by the boys) ensued, of varying success, as we danced around the desert replete with music from a mobile phone and our headlamps set on ‘flash’.

Destinations

Community Connection to Mexico

Mostly, Suzie and I remained by the fire, trying to appease Calcifer, the greedy fire God with small sticks, watching this disco across the desert. We watched shooting stars and the blinking lights of airplanes, which looked like they were rolling themselves into globes of light and sneaking out of the sky towards us.

Gradually, the peyote wore off. We felt tired, and lost. And suddenly, sitting by the fire, we missed the boyfriends we’d left behind.

We both, without an indication to the other, stretched out our hands towards the fire, and watched the smoke curl round the dark silhouettes of our outstretched fingers. But there was nobody there to hold them. It was time for bed.

Post One-ness Experience

A one-ness experience is not the realization that ‘everything is connected’, but the concrete visualization of this – a true knowledge of what the “hippies” call the unified transformative energy field.

People access it through meditation, astronauts sometimes experience it in space when they see the Earth from far away, a huge curved globe in the sky. We found it through Peyote.

The trouble with one-ness experiences is that people can suffer afterwards, spending their whole lives trying to capture that fleeting glimpse of beauty, of order in the void.

Fot us, in the days following the peyote experience, the world seemed flat, washed out, cold.

Suzie said she felt that when Peyote left, her lover had left her cold in her bed – he introduced himself to us that night, flirted, and left.

And did we learn anything?

The Lesson Out Of Reach

At one point, after the sun had set in the desert, I walked off alone in the night and almost saw Peyote in the sky; cracks of brilliant light that had nothing to do with the stars.

“What are you trying to tell me? What is the answer” I screamed inside my head, almost crying in the intensity and the confusion. I didn’t find an answer that night, but I think what Peyote taught me is the strange incomprehensibility of everything.

You can’t measure quality of life by what you do every day, but by this shining brilliance beyond it, just out of reach.

And so, I am still flat broke, still carting around the same old backpack of burnt clothes (a different story), still have the same relationship worries.

But they don’t seem to matter anymore – these mad, wild, rare experiences are more important.

I know i’ll go back to the desert again. I think everyone does. But until then, I’m not going to let the memories of this experience leave me feel flat and cold, but use them constructively. Somehow.

Have you shared a similar experience searching for truth? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Don’t miss Dani’s previous article Meditating In Mexico: Close Encounters of the Guru Kind.

These guys look harmless enough…

This article is provided for informational purposes only. Please use your own judgment in deciding what to do with it. Be aware that magic mushrooms are illegal to possess in many countries.

An orange slice was sitting on the kitchen counter, hidden just behind the light. My head was throbbing mercilessly, the mushrooms just beginning to kick in.

A quarter of an orange- plump, juicy, veined. I began to laugh, in fact I began to laugh hysterically and couldn’t stop for the next three minutes.

I couldn’t help it – the orange slices reminded me of a vagina.

At their best, magic mushrooms reduce you to a blubbering mess of giggles and bellyache laughter. At their worst, they make you feel like you just walked out of a harrowing rollercoaster ride: nauseous, dizzy, and bilious.

Prior to my recent foray into the hallucinogenic world, I was what one would consider the uncommon phenomenon of a drug-free, 20-something writer living in New York City.

I suppose my biggest hesitation with the idea of taking magic mushrooms -or any drug, for that matter – was losing self-control and putting into question the ideas I had about myself. But then again, maybe that was the point: discovering the unknown part of you, the alter ego lurking just behind the surface.

One day I had too much time, too few obligations, and access to a stash of magic mushrooms. That’s when I began to discover the complexities beyond what I thought I knew, and more importantly, who I thought I was.

Part 1 – Prepping for Shrooms

Psilocybe, or “magic mushrooms” as they’re more commonly called, are a mild hallucinogen.

They affect each person differently, and unless taken in large amounts, most people don’t actually hallucinate or have “visions” or “flashbacks.”

They’re organic, accessible (not much more difficult than scoring weed), and though it does come with its hazards, there’s the reassuring thought that if you don’t like it, your body will simply metabolize the drug and you can get back to normal again.

“Mostly it’s just glowing colors, distortions, details popping out.. good vibes,” I was reassured. “You’ll like it.”

The website MagicMushrooms.net is a great resource for first-timers, though my friends provided me with the most practical tips:

Through the looking glass.

Make the mushrooms more palatable

“They taste absolutely disgusting,” experienced shroom-takers all agree on. “Take them with M&Ms,” was one suggestion. “They’ll go down easier.”

Be in a good place

“Stay in a safe, comfortable environment.” The setting, I learned, determines largely whether you’ll have an enjoyable or excruciating trip. One friend highly recommends taking them on the beach, where the ocean looks like a pulsating blue glow.

Don’t let the blind lead the blind

“Make sure you’re taking them with someone who’s had them before,” I was told again and again.

Dave, my boyfriend and experienced shroom buddy insisted we clean our apartment. “You’ll find that everything clean will look dirty, and everything dirty will look disgusting,” he said.

“Good luck,” a friend of mine wrote before the experiment. “You’re going to learn so much about yourself, others, the world…”

Part 2 – Is it just me or is the world throbbing?

Twenty minutes into our first serving of shrooms, I was complaining of their non-effect on me. “I feel completely normal! They probably don’t even work on me,” I declared. “Let’s take the rest then,” Dave said. We licked the plate clean of mushroom dust.

Within minutes, Dave was bouncing around the room, laughing at every little thing and marveling at colors. I, on the other hand, was spiraling down a dark cave.

My limbs couldn’t decide if they wanted to shift restlessly, as they were beginning to do, or lay inert in bed. My head felt like someone was kneading it, and my stomach kept threatening to launch a revolution. The mushrooms were not sitting well with my body.

Getting past the initial, debilitating effect of the mushrooms was the most challenging part of the experience.

But once I was outside, navigating traffic and negotiating with sundry New York characters, it became easier to forget how horrible my body felt and how light my mind actually was.

My head wasn’t cloudy (the way one’s thoughts can be muddled when drunk) and with the city being an explosion of stimuli, my mind zipped through so many connections. I was aware of all of them, if only briefly.

Occasionally I would burst out laughing. At what, I didn’t know or remember, but I just laughed and snorted and wheezed until I was out of breath, stopping mid-giggle to convey how I had no idea what was so funny.

Part 3 – Did I just say that?

In our heightened state, Dave and I decided to walk to a nearby park. I still knew how to put one leg in front of the other, but not much else. Nausea was still invading my body in sporadic bursts, and though I hid behind large sunglasses, I felt everyone in the world could tell I was high.

Colourful stimuli / Photo by Photo Gallery

We found a grassy mound where we laid down and stared at the sky and the trees. I’ve heard colors appear to glow when on shrooms, but I wasn’t convinced that the greens and blues of the park were any more vibrant that day.

Dave noticed every little detail: “Did you realize that all the trees on our block are of the same species?”

After studying some puzzling elements around the park -a stuffed pig on roller-skates, tourists who asked for directions but never moved, people running to and from a tree with bright, fluttering balloons, he figured out that all these strange, disparate characters were planted by a Disney-sponsored Bingo game. “Now it makes sense,” he said.

I had settled into a mental acuteness unfamiliar to me. There was a distinct remove between what I was saying and what I was doing, and who the person was behind it all.

It felt like I was observing myself as I was being, and though I’d lived in New York City for two years, everything felt new again. The tranny who works at a vintage shop on my block (and whom I stopped noticing almost two years ago) looked me in the eye and said in her baritone, “Need a pair of shades?” I was terrified.

An Altered Perspective

My mind was opening up connections I wouldn’t normally make.

On our way home, we stopped by a deli and Dave said, “Let’s take a bottle of water,” I instantly responded, “But we have to pay for it first!” He looked at me strangely.

I realized I was paranoid about doing something wrong. My subconscious, I figured out, is more uptight than my conscious self.

Soon, in the comfort of an air-conditioned bedroom, I was waxing existential and listening to music, which is famous for sounding better on hallucinogens. Lyrics turned into epiphanies.

Sometimes I’d catch myself mid-sentence, and wonder -do I actually live with this person (meaning me) and do I even like this person? It was a strange back- and-forth of ruminations, which I could sometimes convey verbally, sometimes not.

I reveled in this strange but satisfying sentience, and when the drugs wore off less than three hours later, I was left with a lingering curiosity about myself and the world.

Would I take magic mushrooms again? Sure, but next time I’ll do it outside of New York City -even when I’m sober and completely cognizant, the city’s still a lot to take in.

Update: Find some more specific tips for taking mushrooms here.

What do you think of magic mushrooms and their ability to “open” the mind? Share your thoughts in the comments!