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God is a Supercomputer
Psilocin
Citation:   Kapitan. "God is a Supercomputer: An Experience with Psilocin (exp95356)". Erowid.org. Dec 20, 2012. erowid.org/exp/95356

 
DOSE:
12 mg oral Psilocin (capsule)
BODY WEIGHT: 150 lb
Recently, I was strolling through the park on a crisp winter day, when a sample of synthetic freebase 4-HO-DMT fell from the sky and landed on the hiking path in front of me. Some of the label was in Chinese, for some unknown reason. Maybe it was picked up by a tornado in Shanghai? Of course, I snatched it up and sprinted home, furtively glancing over my shoulder for the police. I dumped it into an airtight amber glass vial with a packet of silica desiccant, put the vial inside a mason jar filled with more desiccant, and placed the jar at the back of my freezer. It sat there for a couple of months before I had a chance to try it. It's white and flaky, but not shiny, and didn't seem to change in appearance over those two months. A sample in a capsule, left out at room temperature, turned brown and gooey within a few weeks.

I'm fairly experienced with entheogens; as far as tryptamines go, I've tried 4-AcO-DMT, 4-HO-MET, 4-HO-MiPT, 5-MeO-MiPT, LSD, vaporized DMT, 'mimosahuasca', and psilocybin mushrooms. I have also sampled many phenethylamine compounds, but I tend to be more sensitive to, and get more out of, my tryptamine experiences. My girlfriend, who shared this experience with me, has tried mushrooms, DMT, 2C-T-7, and acid.

--

Today, at about 9:30AM, on the second day of spring break, I encapsulated and ingested 12 mg of the psilocin on an empty stomach. My girlfriend also took the same amount. I used a stopwatch to track the time course, but neglected to take actual notes.

On this particular morning, we're both in a good mood, with no serious stresses in our lives. I'm a 20-something honors chemistry major at a large American university, and my girlfriend works at a law firm. We have a pretty stable relationship, and live together. Neither of us have used any psychoactives, other than caffeine, since the TMA-2 that we tried around Christmas. As it seems relevant to this particular experience, we're both atheists. Also, I have a history of 'freaking out' on some high dose-trips, especially with tryptamines, which is the reason for the conservative initial dose. I decided to concurrently administer 25 mg of atenolol, a beta blocker, to hopefully attenuate any adrenaline-fueled freakouts.

After taking the capsule, I jumped in the shower, hoping to get past the physical discomfort stage of the onset under the warm water. That plan didn't pan out, though, and I didn't feel anything before I got out twenty minutes later. I felt my 'alert' after roughly 45 minutes. I was looking out of my apartment window, and everything seemed a bit more vivid. The grass was greener, and everything somehow seemed more three-dimensional. The sun seemed especially bright and friendly. A guy in a brown suit walked by the bank that I can see from my desk, and I was struck by how lucky I am to live in a rich, developed first-world country. I put on the album 'Bon Iver, Bon Iver' by Bon Iver. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, the effects of the psilocin began to develop along with the music. By the end of the album, the music was almost a religious experience. 'I was not ... magnificent.' Colors got more intense. I didn't notice any crawling patterns or significant open-eyed visuals yet.

The come-up was not over, though, by any means. My girlfriend had been chilling in the bedroom, hiding under the blankets, but she came into the main room to be with me. We decided to watch the end of, 'James Bond: Quantum of Solace,' which we had started the night before. I was captivated by the denouement of this fantastic movie. I had never realized how great the acting was, or how decision-oriented the plot was. The movie seemed to be, basically, a bunch of gunfights and explosions framing a few critical decisions by the lead characters.

... (Decisions) ...

After the movie, we cuddled for a bit. I had been checking my watch incessantly, to the chagrin of my partner, and it was about T+1:30. She tried to tickle my feet, which I normally hate. It just felt weird, though. It didn't feel at all like it normally does. It was a more intense sensation, but different. It felt really strange. I kept checking my stopwatch, and even though we only spent twenty minutes or so on the couch, it seemed like an eternity. The time dilation was extreme, to a degree that I've only experienced with 2C-T-2. Honestly, I was kind of bored.

At about T+2hr, I decided to take a hot bath. This was where I would spend almost the whole peak of the trip. As soon as I climbed into the hot water and settled down, I started to notice overt OEVs crawling around on the white bathroom wall. They looked like tubes with balls of white energy moving through them, or like the floaters that I sometimes get in my field of vision, but greatly magnified and tessellated and moving. There were green parts. I started thinking about decisions. It really bothered me that I have only a vague idea of what I want to do after I graduate. I was conflicted about several academic decisions I've made recently.

While I was laying back in the tub, gradually I became aware of a ... 'presence' behind me. It seemed masculine, but not 'human' in the normal sense of the word. I don't believe in God, but it seemed somehow divine, or at least outside the realm of normal reality. If I was religious, I would have identified this as God. As it was, I knew it was some kind of universal-organizer being. There seemed to be a green and black color associated with the entity. My thought trajectory was firmly fixated on my school work and the resulting life choices, and the entity seemed to be aware of this. I never turned around to actually look, but it seemed to take on the form of several of the mentors that I've had in my life: one of the grad students in my former lab, and especially a biochemistry professor that I have a good relationship with.

The entity made me aware of the fact that what I thought of as my subjective consciousness was actually just a simulation, run inside a giant post-singularian supercomputer, and that this entity was a manifestation of the computerized AI responsible for the simulation. Nonetheless, it seemed benevolent. I was intensely curious as to why a super-intelligent computer would want to be a person. In response, he kept emphasizing that the point of life was to make decisions, and to have purpose. To avoid making decisions was an attempt to avoid interacting with life, even though that was fundamentally impossible. The supercomputer had the raw intelligence to simulate awareness, but it didn't have the uniquely human trait of motivation and purpose, in the absence of programming. It was just spinning its wheels. Apparently, I was some sort of simulated anthropology project.

I slumped down in the tub, and watched a water droplet slowly drip down the side, finally merging with the bath water. I felt like I merged with the bath water as well. Infinity. I found a small flake of paint floating in the tub with me, and, picking it up on the tip of my finger, I interrogated it as to its function and purpose. I felt connected with the paint flake.

My girlfriend came in to comfort me at some point, and got in the bathtub with me. She didn't seem nearly as intoxicated as I felt, but that may have just been a product of my altered judgement. I talked to her as if she was the divine entity, and told her about entropy. I thought that the universe that the AI inhabited was approaching heat death, and they needed the simulated human mind to direct the allocation of the last units of negentropy. I asked her what her 'purpose' was, which seemed to confound her.

Obviously, I was losing coherency and becoming delusional. After this, the trip devolved into some serious confusion. I remember that she told me an abridged version of her life story, which, despite having lived with her for several months, I was mostly ignorant of. I don't remember much of the third hour of the trip, though.

At about 1:45PM, just over 4 hours after ingestion, we got out of the bath, and climbed in bed. I was seriously pruned up from spending two hours in the tub, and my hands looked like the hands of an old man. Was I an old man? Had I had a stroke or something? My girlfriend suddenly looked like she was an elderly caretaker. Was I going to die? Did I have alzheimers? I saw my hands getting more wrinkly right in front of me.

I was fine, though. The delusions started subsiding at five hours, and we had some heartfelt conversation and bonding during the comedown. Even though physical sensations were still enhanced, neither of us felt like trying to have sex. The experience was mostly over by the sixth or seventh hour.

--

I've only taken 4-AcO-DMT twice, and not at all within the last year, but this experience seemed similar to what I remember. The motif of aging at the end was, in retrospect, nearly identical to something I experienced on 30 mg of psilacetin eighteen months ago. I'm not sure that I could tell the difference between 4-HO-DMT and 4-AcO-DMT in a blind taste test, but honestly I'm not very experienced with either, compared to some people. I never experienced any nausea or physical discomfort with either compound.

Of the two psilocin homologs I've tried, 4-HO-MET and 4-HO-MiPT, I would say that this stuff was definitely closer to the former, but much more abstract and less recreational. I'm glad that I didn't try to go for a walk or something, as I was obviously fairly delusional during the peak. I was also surprised at how protracted the onset was. In contrast, with both of my 4-HO-MiPT fumarate trips, I was peaking within an hour, but experienced some strong physical discomfort.

Overall, it was a great experience. I definitely hit a +++ on the Shulgin scale while I was in the bath. It was more intense than I had anticipated, with only 12mg. I'm glad I didn't start with a higher dose, but I look forward to cautiously exploring the deeper realms of synthetic psilocin. Perhaps I'll be fortunate enough to tug on the beard of the God I don't believe in again.

Exp Year: 2012ExpID: 95356
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: Dec 20, 2012Views: 14,704
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Psilocin (388) : General (1), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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