4g Golden Teacher Hike

This trip took place yesterday, August 9, and was my first trip in four months. I had a rough time sleeping the night prior and only ended up getting around five hours of sleep, but was not willing to let this hold me back.My close friend M agreed to trip sit me so I met up with him at around 8AM. M has no experience with psychedelics, but I politely asked him to watch PsychedSubstance’s trip sitting guide to ensure he had some education on what to expect. We drove up to a redwoods preserve and each drank 30mg of CBD, to ease anxiety and help to relax. We made it to the park around 9AM and set out. I allowed him to take a few hits of my wax pen because I knew he was phenomenal at handling his weed, it didn’t worry me that he wouldn’t be fully sober.I had fasted for the past 12 hours to make sure that the shrooms would take effect as soon as possible. We made it a few hundred yards into the forest before I pulled out the dried shrooms and ate them. I’ve never minded the taste of shrooms. I also wasn’t worried about nausea because I’ve never gotten nausea from shrooms. Thirty minutes later, ≈ 9:35AM I began to start my trip. It started when M went off to take a piss. I stared at my hand, my usual way of telling if I’m tripping or not, and my skin had taken on a translucent effect. It was a mix of light pink and light blue which flowed and was filled with optical illusion-esque patterns. If you look up “triangle optical illusion” on Google Images you’ll get a pretty good idea of what these patterns looked like. More on these patterns later. I was happy that they had taken effect so fast, because in past experiences I have had to wait up to two hours. Around twenty minutes later, M and I made it to a clearing on the side of a mountain which overlooked the Pacific Ocean and valleys full of trees. This is when my trip began to take off. We lied on the side of the path to take in the view and colors were already becoming very vibrant. The attached photo is the actual place we went, and I’ve edited it a little to match the colors I saw. As we looked out at these trees, I saw each and every one of them swaying back and forth independently. There were three mountains full of trees which overlapped and I could make out the shape of a skull in them. I asked M if he could make it out and he of course could not. This skull didn’t scare me, I just thought it was cool. I looked out at the clouds in the distance and they were breathing and zooming away and towards me constantly. I closed my eyes to see if I would get any closed-eyes visuals, and was greeted by a vast plane of vivid red blood cells floating around. I kept them shut and my vision smoothly transitioned into a flowing geometric world made of yellow and orange. At this point, I opened my eyes back up and pulled out my phone to take a mini vlog. M went on Snapchat and pulled up a filter which makes your face look funny in the middle of the vlog. I found it absolutely hilarious and captured that moment on film.The first strangers passed us and I wasn’t paranoid in the slightest, which I was expecting to be. I think it’s possible the CBD helped with that. I was able to think straight, which I haven’t been able to do in my past trips, as every single one has taken place in the dark with no music or simulation, pushing me to the brink of psychosis.We kept walking and encountered a banana slug. The grippy body part on the bottom of the slug was pulsing and moving, but for the most part it was still just a banana slug. I gave it a kiss and we continued into the beautiful redwood forest. I asked M to pass me a sweatshirt so I could feel it’s softness, as everything was feeling soft at this point. The sweatshirt was soft on a level I cannot describe. It was soft on a cosmic level. However, the sweatshirt kept on slipping out of my hands because it seemingly had way more parts and complexity to it then it should’ve. I handed it back to M and continued because the infinite falling sensation was irritating.I looked at the ground as we walked and it seemed to be straight out of a AAA video game. It seemed as if each and every pine needle was intentionally placed where it was to create an effect of being in a video game. I stopped and took a close look at some tree roots bursting out of the dirt, and it was as if I could see the life of the tree, years of growing condensed into ten seconds, actively slithering and snaking and breathing. Each tree I looked at seemed soft and enhanced, very hard to describe. There was so much more to how these trees looked but I simply don’t have the vocabulary to describe it. At one point, I stared at a tree and saw ancient peoples facing each other holding a vase.We continued, and bubbly letters began to be in every single area of my vision, spelling “PSY.” This was there for the remainder of the trip.Eventually M and I reached a spot where I could sit down and take a break from the walking for a bit. My body felt alien and I felt like I was in an extremely vivid dream, still completely functional and in control but five steps away from reality. I stared at my hands for a while as they were fuzzy and my fingers were super long. I peaked when I laid down on an angled surface and gazed into the forest. The triangle patterns and bubbly letters were absolutely everywhere. The longer I gazed, the more I saw. But I could still think perfectly straight. Branches grew everywhere, multiplying infinitely. My world view seemed to shift to those tiny earth GoPro videos. I became a part of the ground. I felt like concrete and helium at the same time. Trees switched from being extremely complex to just one shade of brown with one shade of green leaves (shadowless) constantly.Eventually we made it out of the forest after 6.5 miles. I was absolutely mentally and physically exhausted, and finally ate something after around 17 hours, I wasn’t hungry during the trip.It was a good trip, but I wasn’t expecting to be able to think so straight. I honestly believe I could of easily upped the dose to six or seven grams. I think this has to do with the fact that I’ve already experienced the greatest fear a human being is capable of experiencing when I stupidly took 400ug of acid in the dark and rocketed into a catatonic stupor of psychosis in which I was in a four dimensional sleep in space in which I felt and experienced shape shifting of my own body, which was also four-dimensional. Basically, I knew what this substance could potentially do to me, and this level of tripping was 50x less then where I’ve been. I struggled with self image issues, but I didn’t let this impede my experience much. I didn’t have a spiritual experience, just a fun visual, dreamy, indescribable body sensations experience. Thank you mushroom gods for allowing me to enjoy myself.