This is a long read but I'm putting it here in case it is of any use to anyone.
Trip Report 30/08/2026
A Bad Trip â Chaos, Frustrations, Introspection
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Dose:
4.5g of Psilocybin Mushrooms âMcKennaiiâ Strain.  The McKennaii strain is marketed as being a âstrongâ strain, and are more potent than regular Golden Teacher.   Therefore this would be classified as a heroic dose of shrooms. . Consumed via the Lemon Tek method.
Some THC/CBD (hash) was also used around 3 hours into the trip. The intention was not to use any hash and stay purely with mushrooms. But the reasons for it will be made clear in the trip report
Solo trip at home.
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Intentions
The intentions were to let the trip unfold itself. Allow the mushrooms to guide the narrative. To see if more spiritual information would surface regarding the Solar Eclipse that I viewed earlier this month.  Another intention was a request that the shrooms would give me something that I can verify to help prove that that there are external elements at play when perceiving elements and acquiring information and ideas during the trip.
The other intention was to document the trip. Not being a recreational trip. My intention was to work with the substance to discover more about it, the headspace it puts you in and as always, more about myself. Â Psilocybin very frequently turns everything inwards into introspection.
Finally to have an enjoyable time, and a good day!Â
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Come Up
With Lemon Tek, come up is faster, but with the higher dose, it was faster still. Within 15 minutes I was already getting mild visuals. This is much faster than normal for me. The wood panel effect on the wardrobe had started moving slightly. The darker and lighter sections appeared to become thinner and then thicker.  There was also shimmering around the edges of the wardrobe, like a flashing effect.
Negatively I was also feeling my stomach being a little uneasy.
28 minutes in, the come-up was getting brutal. Nausea was kicking in, and general feeling of wellbeing was declining. Visuals were getting more intense, including closed eye visuals.  The desire to just force myself to vomit was increasing in order to just feel better. So I just laid there, breathing exercises and reassured myself that the bad feelings are temporary until I hit the stabilised phase.
Then the visuals suddenly became chaotic.
There were colours flashing everywhere. Behind my closed eyes I was seeing flashing squares and faces appearing for fractions of a second before instantly changing into something else. I couldnât focus on any one thing long enough to examine it or find meaning in it.
Everything was moving at an incredible speed.
The difficult part of the come-up seems to be that your perception starts changing faster than your brain is able to comfortably process. Youâre trying to catch up with what youâre seeing.
Around this stage I became aware of what felt like an entity above me while I was lying down. It seemed to be watching over me and helping me in some way.
What I mean by an entity appearing. Itâs like you can almost visualise something hanging over you. And there is a feeling of it being a more solid thought than just an idea. Itâs like a sixth sense where you feel a presence somewhat.
I couldnât work out exactly what it was doing. The feeling reminded me somewhat of ASMR videos where someone is gently looking after you or pampering you. Another entity appeared as well.
Thereâs a lot to actually unpack here. Were these actual spiritual entities looking out for me as I am coming up into an alternate state of consciousness? Were they actually and literally standing over me looking after me, checking that Iâm OK? Or was that just how I perceive it by my 3 dimensional brain? Thatâs the language I would understand.  Or was this just a product of my own imagination as I attempt to reassure myself?
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Even during come up and the struggles with feeling sick, and generally unwell and out of breath. I was recording voice notes to explain what was happening the best I could. But itâs always difficult to experience something mentally, go deep into it, channel into it, and then have to come out of it, and bring it down, and talk about it, and operate a device to record it. This brings you back out of the experience.   Itâs getting the balance right. Because memory is also extremely unreliable. So much happens that just gets lost. So as per every other trip report, so much happens that just is not possible to record.  Especially as there are just no words to describe everything in accurate detail.
45 minutes in and physically, I still felt horrendous!Â
Talking and recording notes was making me out of breath.   I was trying to focus on what was happening in the non-physical. Eyes closed, going deep into meditation.   This helps disassociate from the physical discomfort. But during the come-up, youâre still hanging onto your physical self. Itâs hard to let go, especially if physical discomfort is heavy.
Your body is screaming at you that something isnât right. You feel hot. Then cold. You feel feverish. You feel nauseous. Youâre uncomfortable and slightly out of breath.
Of course part of you clings to that.
Itâs like your physical body is saying, âThis is bad.â
At the same time, another part of you wants to let go completely and enter the experience.
I was also reaching out spiritually for support, asking for reassurance and for whatever entities I was experiencing to make sure I remained physically okay.
At one point the dream catcher in the room seemed to be waving at me, almost encouraging me to carry on.
This was unpleasant, but it wasnât unexpected. Iâd experienced this type of come-up before on a heroic dose. I reminded myself that I was okay and that this difficult stage would pass.
Eventually it did.
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Stabilised Phase
Over an hour after dosing, finally things started to settle. The nausea was easing, although speaking still took effort.
With the physical discomfort subsiding, the experience starts improving. Gone are fuzzy lines, chaotic visions and clarity comes through.  With eyes closed, It felt like I was inside an empty room, quieter room and peaceful. It felt spiritual and divine, like Iâd finally made it up to where I needed to be.
Open eye visuals were pretty heavy with the entire physical room moving and what you would see with closed eyes super-imposing on top of physical vision. Â Â Shadows were moving around and the whole room seemed to be breathing and shifting.
I noticed something else happening too. The boundary between a thought and something physical seemed to become weaker.   Its hard to explain. But look at an object, such as a pen. Itâs physically there. Now close your eyes and think of a pen. Itâs there in your mind. Completely different and separate. This separation was becoming less. I had a thought and it almost felt like I could physically pick this thought up and throw it away.   I knew I couldnât. I wasnât disillusioned but its just how it felt.
Destabilised Phase
Unfortunately the calm, the physical side effects did not last long, and I found myself actually deteriorating again. Â Â Something that has not really happened before on a mushroom trip. Not to this extent anyway.
But thoughts were coming in fast. Too fast. It was chaotic. The nausea was back, and I was feeling overwhelmed.
My physical senses also seemed hugely heightened. Everything was coming at me at once. I had to consciously slow things down and settle myself rather than allowing the sensory overload to overwhelm me.
My normal playlist of chill music felt too fast, too much. I had to go for slower more melodic music to help keep myself grounded and relax.
Again, I was aware of entities standing over me and checking on me. They seemed to be looking after me physically.
Again, part of me wondered whether this was actually happening or whether my mind was presenting the reassurance in a three-dimensional form because that was the easiest way for me to understand it. I donât think it was literally people / spirits standing over me. But thatâs how it felt. And if thatâs how my mind chose to present reassurance, I was happy to accept it.
One of my intentions for this trip was to stop questioning everything and allow the experience to take me where it wanted.
So if the mushrooms wanted to show me support in that form, why fight it?
I wasnât questioning it because I wanted to reject it. I was questioning it because I wanted to understand the bigger picture.
I noticed my teeth chattering slightly. So itâs a conscious thought to really focus on yourself to discover whether you are too hot or too cold. When everything else is on over drive, and what feels like thousands of thoughts racing around the brain all at once, its easy to ignore yet another one which is âIâm coldâ.
Except I wasnât, because the room temperature was  around 25.7°C. I had a fan running. It wasnât too hot or too cold.
I was consciously reminding myself that I was safe.
Eventually I stopped the music and allowed myself to experience things without any soundtrack. Without music, things felt different.
The raw sounds of the room became part of the experience. The fan was making a repetitive âwop, wop, wopâ sound.
Memories began appearing extremely vividly.
It gives ways also to audio hallucinations too. At one point I heard something which sounded like someone clearly saying, âWait a minute.â
There were flashes of sounds, almost like little fragments of audio arriving from nowhere. Voices, the odd words. Coming fast and hard to understand.
Then the nausea returned.
The emotional tone shifted slightly negative and I opened my eyes. Almost immediately, the physical discomfort came back with it. I became sweaty and uncomfortable again. I was seeing not so nice visuals. Including a dark witch type figure at the side of the wardrobe.
I needed to use the toilet. Needing to pee a lot is a common effect of mushrooms.
Everything was moving and wobbling around me. The visuals were interesting and actually quite nice, but the physical stimulation was still too high and it took a lot out of me to just get up to go.
Everything was chaos. I was beyond visuals now. I didnât even notice them. Just my brain was running at what seemed like a thousand miles an hour. Thoughts coming in too fast.   With not feeling good, and seeing and feeling some negative things. I opted to change the room, change the trip. So I wanted to go outside from the bedroom and sit in the garden.  Â
I wanted to calm down.
I felt as though I might be able to be sick without ruining the trip now, but I wasnât sure.
At around 1 hour 22 minutes, I felt more stabilised, but there was still a lot happening.
I decided I needed to change my mindset.
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Outside
1 hour 30 minutes in. I headed for outside, to sit in the garden. Initially it felt much better . I had gone to my normal playlist, but for some reason the music sounded like it was playing much faster. Uncomfortably much faster .  This was something Iâd never experienced before. Normally my mushroom music feels calming and slow, but now it seemed to be running too quickly. It wasnât working for me in the same way.Â
The entire garden was moving. Everything was warping and breathing.
I focused on my tree outside.  I love it when the tree changes to a repeated pattern of tiles, like a wallpaper.   From there, youâve made what I believe to be a spiritual connection and you can start perceiving entities as they start popping out, not through pareidolia with the shape of the leaves, but actual video style images and videos of faces, cats, and unknown entities. I wasnât really getting that at this point as I was struggling to hold any sort of focus.
My head was not in the right space at all. I could not hold my thoughts to it for long at all. I was uncomfortable sitting outside.
I cannot overstate just how much my head was spinning at this point. This was not euphoria, and wow!  Everything was turning inwards about me.Â
I thought maybe time to watch a movie which I had prepped in advance. A comedy. Because I was not having a good time.    Or maybe watch an ASMR video to try and calm down somewhat.  Iâm not actually a fan of ASMR videos when baseline but they actually can have a good effect during trips.   I also wanted to go to sleep. I felt exhausted already.   I just wanted out of my own head.
I wasnât connecting to anything spiritual or gaining any insights. It was just all too chaotic and going too fast. I felt rubbish for not keeping up with things.
After only 15 minutes outside. I just wanted to go back to bed.   Despite the fact that the bedroom had become quite a negative place, with not feeling well, and seeing some less favourable visions. I just had this huge drive, wanting me to go back into that room. Despite the fact I was sat outside in nature on a lovely sunny day.Â
I recognised that this was probably part of the experience.  The trip felt as though it was forcing me to look at negative things. It felt like the mushrooms were saying, âYou need to deal with your negativities. You need to deal with the bad things.â
Part of me wanted to get rid of the nausea by sticking my fingers down my throat and forcing myself to vomit. For some reason, this even started to feel like it might be part of a ritual or process. But there was a growing sense that this difficult experience was happening for a reason.
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Back to the Bedroom
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Itâs now been 2 Hours 25 Minutes. I havenât been sick. I was still deep into the trip and the chaos was continuing.Â
I wanted to do everything and do nothing at the same time. I was stuck in thought loops of what to actually do without actually doing anything. Then not knowing what to do.   I should be stabilised by now, and enjoy a trip with insights, thoughts. But I was off the rails here. I didnât understand anything that was coming into me. Its too fast, too chaotic, too much of it.  Â
This led to thoughts of âWhat on earth am I doing?âÂ
Theres an expectation that with psychedelic experiences, that spiritual stuff, wider realities, expanded consciousness makes things clearer.   Not at all! Not this time! With closed eyes Iâm seeing so much going on and none of it made any sense whatsoever.  It would jump from one to another; I couldnât lock onto anything.   I couldnât hold onto a single thought.
I immersed myself into some ASMR just to try and calm the mind down a bit. I needed to stop my own expectations here and potentially mark this one down as a bad job. You canât come out of every trip with amazing insights or achieving knowledge you couldnât have possibly known before. But being a heroic trip, I had expectations and intentions I wanted to achieve.Â
All Iâve done is make myself ill and put myself through a bad time.
I did consider using some cannabis as it may help me focus. The problem is that cannabis is a double-edged sword. It might help focus, but it also risks pushing you straight back into being extremely high as it can really ignite the psilocybin. There are also potential for becoming paranoid, jittery and scared.
I started wondering whether this entire trip was pointless.
One of my intentions had been to come away with something useful. Something which would demonstrate that this was more than me sitting alone on a Sunday afternoon with a large amount of drugs in my head.
And I wasnât getting anything. I was questioning whether there was any meaning at all. Iâm working with psilocybin to explore and document higher and alternate states of consciousness yielding potential external influence. I call myself a psychonaut. And Iâm getting nothing!  Maybe it is all just a load of rubbish. This is just the brains reaction to a chemical, and a bad reaction to a lot of it.  Iâm not a psychonaut; Iâm a junkie on drugs on a Sunday afternoon by himself at home!  I need to stop doing this shit.
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3 Hours in
We are now 3 full hours into the trip. Lemon Tek can begin a come down after 4 hours.  And I have still not stabilised at all, other than for a brief moment earlier.
Three hours into the trip, I wanted to do everything. And I wanted to do nothing. I couldnât hold my attention on anything. And I couldnât hold my attention on nothing.
I spent some time with my cat. Sat on the stairs. Cats can be calming. Didnât work. Within 2 minutes I wanted to do something else.  Then I didnât know what I wanted to do. I considered trying outside again in the garden. Then I wanted to stay inside. Then I wanted to be asleep. Then I wanted to be awake.  Then I wanted to watch the movie I had planned. Or maybe watch more ASMR to try and calm down a bit more.  All these thoughts within a second going round and around in a thought loop.   Then I wanted to do something completely different. Everything kept ripping me out of whatever I was doing. Iâd start something then be like, âno I want to do something else now.â This was the main frustration of the trip.
I remembered previous experiences where I was able to put on beautiful music, look at the visuals and simply disappear into them.
I couldnât do that this time. Everything kept interrupting everything else.
At one point I noticed that I was wearing my sunglasses on my head. I had no idea why they were there. Had I gone outside? Had I put them on earlier? Had I been wearing them the entire time? I had absolutely no idea. That made me laugh.
It was one of those completely stupid things which suddenly became hilarious.
I made the choice. Smoke a very small amount of hash. Just to see if that would calm things down a bit. But not a lot, just to gauge it. Then sit with the laptop and watch the movie Airplane! With Leslie Nielson. From 1980.   Because its hilarious and just thinking about this movie which I have seen several times before was making me smile and laugh.
The Movie (Airplane!)
Twenty-two minutes into the movie and I was laughing so hard. I was laughing at everything, even things that werenât funny. Iâve seen it before. I was laughing at because I knew something was going to happen. I was laughing at what I thought might happen. I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.
For those 22 minutes the movie held my attention perfectly. It was amazing! Â
Finally, something positive from this trip!Â
It felt good. It helped break the thought loops. The loops of not knowing what to do, being frustrated with myself, judging myself. I felt some relief from the internal chaos.
I also realised I needed to stop beating myself up. Part of my mind was saying:
âIâve achieved absolutely fuck all on this trip.â
Iâd taken what was effectively a heroic dose, and after several hours I felt like Iâd gained no spiritual insights, no connections and no great revelation.
But another part of me was saying that perhaps this was the point. Itâs a journey.
Perhaps the meaning only becomes apparent afterwards. I started questioning myself quite harshly. Was I simply an idiot who had decided on a Sunday afternoon to take 4.5g of mushrooms because I thought it was some sort of divine experience?
Or was there something more to it?
The strange thing about mushrooms is that they seem capable of making you look at both possibilities at the same time.
One side of my mind could say, âThis is divine.â The other could say, âMate, youâre just a fucking junkie taking mushrooms for no reason.â
The hash seemed to help me focus a little. It did help and I did continue with more of it during the rest of the trip. Not heavy amounts but just a little to help the focus and remain calmer.
The cannabis definitely helped, But I was still doing everything internally at once.
I wanted to go back to ASMR. I wanted to finish the movie. I needed to pee. I wanted to do something. Maybe go outside again? Play a video game? And I was aware that I was probably still stuck inside the same thought loop.
The thought loop was essentially:
âWhat am I doing?â And then thinking about what I was doing instead of simply doing something.
Yup, the thought loop was back. Not quite as intense though.
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Back Outside - Finally Stabilised!
4 Hours 40 Minutes into the trip. The psilocybin should start wearing off now. This should actually be come down. But the use of cannabis does extend a trip.
But it was OK. Something finally shifted!
I was sat outside and the chaos subsided. I was finally able to focus on what was underneath it all. It was incredible.  I finally stabilised!
I was sitting outside, eyes closed. Still had plenty of closed eye visuals. But instead of it just being chaos. It was still a noise, with lots going on. But it was a case of just observing and noticing the odd thing popping out of that noise and then going down a thought pattern and almost a narrative of that vision, and it finally made sense and I could finally hook onto it. Â Â I had no regrets about smoking the cannabis. The combination of the mushrooms naturally coming down and the cannabis seemed to have helped settle things.
I was actually apologising either to myself or to the shrooms âsorry for not coping beforeâ and I got back that apologies and empathy is not required. Â The entities in this what feels like an academy / spiritual training do need any sort of apology for getting things wrong, or things getting out of hand. Itâs all part of it. In fact those feelings can hold you back.
Where I say academy. I have felt this before. And yes, I felt like a student.  Amid all the chaos, this was where Iâd finally managed to slot myself. You see, psilocybin expands your consciousness to more, and potentially beyond our physical realms. But where that is to, can be different for different people. Consciousness is so multi-dimensional that there are so many places you can settle. For me, on this trip and a previous one. It becomes obvious that the space the psilocybin takes me to, is some sort of training academy for spirituality, psychic ability and even about myself through severe introspection.Â
Finally, after hours of just utter chaos, I had found a path, a place, somewhere to settle.
The important thing wasnât forcing some huge revelation. It was appreciation. I needed to look at the flowers moving and warping and simply think: âWow. Look what I get to see. Itâs incredible, its beautifulâ That mindset seemed to tune me in better.
Now donât get me wrong. I wasnât suddenly in some euphoric moment. The chaos didnât disappear. But it became manageable. And once it became manageable, I started appreciating the chaos itself. I knew I would miss it when it was gone.
I also want to be clear that this wasnât some sudden breakthrough into spiritual euphoria. I was still fighting the same thought loops. I still wanted to do something else. I still had the urge to change direction constantly. But somehow, I was more comfortable with it.
I felt as though I had accomplished nothing. And at the same time, I felt accomplished.
Then came the obvious thought:
Isnât that up to me? We judge ourselves. Our accomplishments are whatever we decide they are.
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The Dragonfly
While outside, I saw a red dragonfly flying around the pool. This was significant to me because I associate dragonflies with a close loved one who passed away some years ago.
I started thinking about the possibility of a dragonfly being a spirit or ancestor reaching out to someone.
It is believed by many that seeing a feather, butterfly, or animal that is associated with a loved one after they have passed is them reaching out to you from beyond.   In my case, my friend liked dragonflies. So, I questioned if this is right or not.  Of course, what came back, was not a simple yes or no. Itâs more nuanced than that.
However, there is a way to know.  The object, or insect or animal that you see would have the same aura as your loved one if it is truly from them.   Obviously not everyone can see auras, and it also came back that even those who do see Auras are only seeing part of it. Theres so much more to an aura and so many more colours to one that we canât see it all. So fully identifying it isnât particularly easy. But listen to your gut instinct. If it feels like its from them, then it is.   Coloured Auras are simply a visual representation of spirit which we perceive because we are visual beings. So thatâs what we understand. But in reality, its not colours, its not visual. Itâs an entirely different sense altogether.   Donât think too hard, donât try and look for it. Just clear your mind, and youâll will just know.
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I realised that the more appreciation, love and positive emotion I put into the experience, the quieter the chaos seemed to become. It felt like rising above it.
When I was caught in sickness, negativity and unpleasant feelings, everything became chaotic.
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The Eureka Moment!
And suddenly the difficult first part of the trip made more sense. It all made sense now! That draw back to the bedroom where I had been experiencing negative things was because the mushrooms wanted me to experience that. They wanted me to drive out negative energy that I apparently have.   Mushrooms want you to face things. They want you to deal with any negativities or problems in your life. By expelling this negative energy allows you to feel appreciation and love for everything else. That takes away the chaos.   That brings you into the light. It brings clarity.
I got it wrong. Change the room, change the trip. I was trying to cover over the negative stuff by trying to positive stuff! Watch a funny movie, go outside, listen to nice music, watch some ASMR.  This is ultimately why the chaos and thought loops and not understanding anything would not subside, or if they did, it was only temporary and I would not stabilise. Â
Thatâs why I was drawn back to the bedroom when I went outside the first time. The mushrooms were telling me to go back and face it. Deal with it. Overcome it. Not run from it.
One of my intentions was to follow the lead of the mushrooms and I didnât!
A lesson learnt!
So I did achieve something!
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The chaos was the result of all this negative material. I needed to experience it. Exhaust it. And move through it.
Maybe this wasnât necessarily spiritual at all. This is just therapy! Itâs a therapy session! You need to exhaust your negative energy before you can get clarity.  You need to feel love and appreciation to connect with spirit.  You cannot do that when you have negative energy in you.
Itâs clear people deal with accumulated negative feelings in all sorts of ways. Some people lash out. Some people bottle it up. Some people use destructive behaviour. When people are violent, they are simply trying to get rid of their negative energy. Itâs the wrong way to get rid of it, as it only invites more.
So what do I mean by energy? On previous spirit quests, energy is defined as neutral. There is no positive or negative.  So why suddenly am I talking about negative energy?   There is no such thing as positive or negative energy, energy just is.
Itâs because we use the word âEnergyâ too loosely.   Itâs a word in our human vocabulary that kind of describes something that is non-physical. During closed eye visuals we see flashes of light, and other colours we wouldnât normally see, and we interpret this as âenergyâÂ
But when we talk about energy as positive or negative energy. Weâre not talking spiritual energy. At least not a higher level of spiritual energy. Like Source Energy.  We are talking about something more human, more rooted physically.  Emotions, Pain, Anger, Sorrow. Things we carry in physical life.     There is a none-physical element to it in our consciousness but its closer to humanity than it is to spirit.   I guess an easy way to describe it, is that there are different types of energy. In reality theyâre nothing like each other, but our three-dimensional brains canât comprehend that.   Essentially the further out you go, higher up you go, you lose the concept of positive or negative energy. Energy is just pure love and just is.
Part of our human experience is experiencing and dealing with positive and negative energy and, well you have to get rid of the negative energy in order to better connect with spirit.Â
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Come Down.
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5 hours 20 minutes into the trip. I had gone back inside again had food and finished watching Airplane!.   It was still funny, although not as crazy funny as the first 20 minutes. The psilocybin has mostly faded with just mild visuals left.   I had been levelled down onto a mild cannabis high.   I was feeling far more relaxed.
But strangely, I was also feeling sad. Sad that the mushroom trip was over. This is despite the fact that I had spent hours feeling unwell, and my head spinning in absolute chaos.   Because despite that, I felt so appreciative to the mushrooms for the experience I had. It was a journey, it was a ritual. And I come out stronger and more knowledgeable for it.
But there was a sadness knowing I was leaving and headed back to baseline. A feeling of missing the shrooms presence and that headspace I was in, despite it being unpleasant at times.
As I came back to baseline, its interesting that the memory of the trip is somewhat different to the actual experience of it.
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After the trip
Reflecting back on the trip despite it being challenging and as some would call, a bad trip. It actually felt really meaningful.   Experiences with psilocybin do run deep into the psyche and leave a lasting mark.Â
I would say that only 2 hours out of the 6 were pleasant and started to get some insights which were documented here.Â
Despite not achieving all the intentions. Nothing came up about the solar eclipse, despite rewatching a video of it. I was in a very different place to where I was during that event.
This was a right of passage, a learning experience. Introspection and I felt happy for it and glad I experienced it, even if it wasnât a good trip.
People who are not experienced with psilocybin should not do a heroic trip like this because of the challenges it presents and how uncomfortable it is. This is my third heroic trip and by far the worst one.  So never think no matter how experienced you are, that you will handle a mushroom trip. Each trip is different.
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