Experiencing your altered conscious for the first time can be one of the most important and liberating experiences in your entire life, so I advise you to make the most out of it, but also be extra careful. In-depth research and preparation are key to a successful trip for discovering and working on yourself.

Psychedelics can not only offer a beautiful trip, but can also assist you with working on yourself, giving you insight on your questions, showing you a path through life and making your brain more receptive to change. Of course, there’s also a certain risk coming with substances like psilocybin, LSD, DMT or mescaline. I highly advise you to start with a low dose of psilocybin, meaning psilocybe mushrooms or truffles, the latter of which being a little weaker.

Preparation

Knowledge

As already mentioned, in-depth knowledge of the substance you’re taking is critical. Do not skip this or any other mentioned step under any circumstances. A good resource to get started is The Drug Users Bible. Read and follow the 10 commandments in full length. A free PDF of the extended version can easily be found on the internet. In addition, most reputable resources for drugs host a PDF version too.

Source

Never buy from a source you can’t fully trust. These substances deal with your brain and you would not want this to happen with random drugs. If possible, buy from a controlled source, if the substance of choice is legal in your or a neighboring country. If that’s not the case, invest some time into growing or sourcing yourself. Being 100% safe is the most essential factor of a good and healthy trip.

Dosage

Start with a low dosage of a lighter psychedelic. Psilocybe mushrooms or truffles come in handy with this, as especially truffles are not as potent as their mushrooms and psilocybin in general tends to cause safer trips than LSD or DMT in terms of feelings and encounters. You absolutely don’t need to have an intense trip, especially not if it’s your first time. This is not about being as “high” as possible and you will be absolutely satisfied with a low dosage in the end, too. For truffles, I can recommend consuming about 15g of a light type, such as Tampanensis or “Philosopher’s Stone”.

Mentality

Make sure, you’re healthy and well. This does not only apply to physical, but also mental health. If you’re at a bad point in life, feel stressed, depressed or sad, postpone the experience. Take your time and be absolutely sure about your intent. There’s no rush connected to this.

Planning

Never trip spontaneously. Plan everything beforehand, take time off at work for 2-3 days and clean your room. Before taking the substances, get yourself some blankets, sugar-free drinks (Water always works, but tasty drinks can be interesting, too), and healthy food for later. I can personally recommend a rich salad with some cheese and a sauce of your choice. Make sure, you haven’t eaten fast-food or any other big meal within 2 hours before intake of the substance, having somewhat of an empty stomach will greatly improve the experience. Also get a small speaker to play calming music while you’re under the influence of the substance to lead and support your trip and turn on nice, maybe colored lights (Pro tip: Get a pen and paper to write down or create sketches about your thoughts and feelings, if you feel like it!) Your first trip is best enjoyed in your own room’s bed or somewhere else you feel at home at. Get a good room temperature and have both food and a bathroom close to you. You might feel the need to puke after taking the substance, so that comes in handy very quickly. Directly before taking the psychedelic, turn off any computers and set your phone to Do Not Disturb. Start your playlist of choice and put your phone as far away as possible.

Emergencies

If you’re tripping alone, which I do not recommend, write down contact details and other relevant information and keep it close to your body at all times. More sophisticated information about this can be found, and should be taken from the 10 commandments of the drug users bible.

Recovery

A psychedelic experience is draining for both your body and mind. You will not only feel very tired right after the trip, but might have side-effects such as light fever or headaches the day after. Plenty of free time after being in an altered state of consciousness also gives you the opportunity to reflect on your experience and allows to write down and implement possible changes you might want in your life. Long breaks between drug usages are essential to reduce both the risk of addiction and to help with tolerance. Around 10 experiences per year is more than enough, but if you feel the need to, the absolute maximum usage frequency is about once in 2 weeks. More info about harm & addiction prevention is found in the drug users bible.

Company

I highly recommend having a trip-sitter with you throughout the experience. Not only should the person of choice have an idea of what you’ll be experiencing, but should also know about techniques to navigate your trip in case of unintended effects. Going outside afterwards and taking a walk is often a good way to sort your thoughts and to calm down. Most importantly, being able to fully trust your sitter and being able to be somewhat intimate with that person is not only essential, but will also greatly enhance your experience. I can personally recommend to keep your group as small as possible. You and your sitter is enough for a first time.

Self-improvement

Lastly, psychedelics are a great way to work on yourself. Think about you and your life beforehand and choose a few, but meaningful questions or goals, you might want answers to. There’s no guarantee, you will find those answers within your first or any experience at all, but there’s also a good chance you do. After the peak of your trip is over, you will slowly come down and get back to your sober self. That time is perfect to think and talk about your goals and reflect on what you’ve learned. When the trip is over, you might not be able to fully remember everything, so this is also the part, where you might want to write things down, if possible. Do not force anything, however, let things happen and only do what’s possible without further inconveniences. Most psychedelics also make your brain more receptive to change for around 2 weeks, offering a way to overcome addiction, bad habits or to implement positive structures into your everyday life. Use this time as best as possible, and while I trust you doing so, I also mean it. Self-improvement is always an honorable goal to strive for, in my opinion.

The trip

I can obviously only talk for myself and my own experiences so far, but I will also try my best to include common features of a psychedelic trip. I want to specifically talk about the effects of a low dose of psilocybin, but other hallucinogenic substances usually have similar features.

I recommend taking mushrooms or truffles orally, so the effect of them will start around 30 minutes after consumption. Both versions don’t exactly taste great, so having something to wash the taste down with or mixing them into a shake is advisable. Make sure to chew well and slowly, there’s no reason to rush. Tolerance will only start to form after around an hour, so you’re not wasting any active ingredient by taking your time. Do not double-dose or take more under any circumstances, if the effect doesn’t seem to set in. It will eventually and before you know it, you might have already lost your sense of time. Not having a clock in sight is advisable to be fully able to let yourself fall and experience whatever might happen. If you’ve followed all steps so far, you’re fairly safe to proceed. Relax and accept any and all thoughts, visions or feelings that may spark. As long as you do not resist and just let it happen, you will have a wonderful time.

After 30 - 40 minutes, you will quickly start noticing a slight blur on your vision, you might also experience the feeling of seeing things twice very subtly. Over the course of a few minutes after that, you will start noticing your vision becoming clearer again, even clearer than normally. The more you focus on one point, the stronger visual distortions will get. Abstract patterns and textures start to appear on walls, ceiling, paintings and even your skin. They will be gone as soon as you look away though. From now on, you’re slowly approaching the peak of the trip. Once again relax and accept. If you’re feeling unsure about your situation, try talking to your trip-sitter. Tell them about what you’re experiencing and your thoughts, they will be there for you. Approaching the peak is a smooth process and you won’t really be able to tell when you actually got there, but the effects are prominent nonetheless. Colors will appear way more saturated than usual, lights and shadows appear as if you were in a videogame or movie, almost as if someone adjusted the colors to look more appealing. Your surroundings start to appear as if they were breathing and in well-lit areas, textures might start to distort and scroll. When looking at your trip-sitter, their face might appear different than usual. They might appear as if they’d have different haircuts, quickly but also smoothly changing, their face might look more feminine or masculine, as if they had face paint, or almost animalistic. All of this comes with a feeling of sensation and deeply internal happiness. At this point, you’ve lost any sense of time and letters, numbers and words don’t make as much sense anymore. They’re there, but have lost their meaning. The only meaningful way of communication will be to talk to your trip-sitter. Feel free to explain and elaborate on your feelings and thoughts, which will feel not only heavily important, but also as if they were always correct in the first place. As if they were there before you and as if they’d be there after you, too. Your sober self and your altered conscious will feel fairly separate from each other, where your sober state is the one, you will knowingly return to later. As you lay down, your blanket and bed will feel unbelievably soft and comfortable. You’re closing your eyes to relax and you will suddenly start to imagine divine, almost godlike, ancient beings with abstract textures as their skin, only remotely similar to human beings in a static or alive form. You might envision them in different poses and you start to feel like you’re them and they’re you. Creatures of unknown wisdom, each with their own personality. With low dosages, they usually won’t seem alive or interact with you, but this kind of behavior is quite common with higher dosages of psilocybin or LSD. The longer your trip goes, the more you will come to conclusions on questions about yourself, the world or life itself, introducing a sense of new wisdom and bliss. From now on, you’re on your way back to sobriety, the comedown. This phase of the trip will take around 4 hours and gives you plenty of time to connect sober and rational thoughts with the takeaways of your experience. If you feel like it, try leaving the room you’re currently in to go to the bathroom or anywhere else in your home. Any change in your surroundings will feel like an entirely new discovery, each room seeming to have it’s own characteristics and impressions. Go back to your room as soon as you feel like it and sit or lay down on your bed again. If you want to save thoughts, feelings or anything else for after your trip, I recommend trying to write things down on your prepared paper. If writing itself does not work, try sketching your thoughts. Don’t force yourself to do anything, only do the things you feel like doing. The more you’re coming back from your adventure, the more you feel hungry and exhausted, but not necessarily tired. If you want, you can try eating a little bit, which will help with both of these feelings. If you’re noticing the food being good for you, eat a bit more and after around 2 hours of comedown, you can also take a look at your phone again. Don’t interact with the internet or anything too overwhelming yet. If you set a stopwatch at the start of the trip, looking at that might be interesting. If you do that, you will notice slow distortions in the user interface and text on the screen. Fonts seem to change and numbers might appear cut or moving for a short period of time. These visual distortions will still be there for the next hour, but they won’t obstruct your vision anymore. Depending on what you learned in your trip, you might feel extremely happy, thankful and curious about life in a way, that doesn’t feel like it’s going away after the effect of the substance has ended. Navigating your phone still feels unusual and somehow fresh and new. Writing down coherent and correct words, sentences or messages might still be a bit difficult, so I recommend to giving this time. Try to relax and experience the last, little remainders of the trip in peace.

It has been around 6 hours now and the exhaustion will return, this time also feeling tired. If you started your trip in the morning, a little nap might be a good idea or, if you started in the evening, going to sleep until the next morning works too. Getting enough sleep is really important as you still got some work to do, tomorrow.

Life & Side-effects

The next morning, you might wake up with a slight headache. Nothing too uncomfortable, but noticeable nonetheless. Slight to strong headaches are a common side-effect of psilocybin consumption, so don’t worry about it too much. If you’re feeling better later, use your time to take some notes about what you might want to change in your life, so that it’s saved somewhere for reference in the coming couple of weeks. It’s also useful for reflecting on your changes after those weeks and to see, if and how you implemented your goals. Also stay away from drugs in the first few days. I personally recommend to fully stay away from drugs over the entirety of the 2 weeks after your trip, but that’s your decision of course. If you’re struggling with addiction, I highly advise you to stop taking that drug for as long as possible. After all, this is the best and easiest time to do so.

The next day, your headache should be nearly to fully gone and you should feel comfortable again. Frequently going outside and appreciating the smaller things in life will remind you of the positive things you learned about yourself and the worth of life. Additionally, everyday life will feel more interesting and real than before and it will be way easier to implement new, healthy behavioral patterns into your life and to work on yourself. Enjoy this while it lasts! If done correctly, a single trip can change your life in a meaningful way!

Thank you so much for reading! Most of the information mentioned is gathered by personal experience and my own research and I would love to hear your experiences and opinions :)

Further Reading & Media Recommendations

Written by angelsflyinhell (She/Her), hobbyist researcher of hallucinogens and their psychedelic effects.

Reach me over Twitter or Discord as angelsflyinhell! I am happy to answer any questions or feedback you might have.