There's a major difference in the way the mind of a scientist or engineer works versus the mind of an art student. Whenever I take mushrooms, I usually follow a "schedule" of things to do and try. Others I know will literally lay on a couch for 10 hrs.
"Others I know will literally lay on a couch for 10 hrs."
You can't tell how much the person is getting out of the experience just by looking at them. They could just lie on the couch for ten hours with their eyes closed and be having one of the most profound experiences of their life. In fact, someone who is using the drug for introspection is almost certainly getting more out of the experience than someone who is using the drug to explore the world. Most serious psychonauts recommend taking the drug laying down in the dark while blindfolded to get the most out of it.
I mean think about it, you're about to have one of the five most important experiences of your life, on par with death or the birth of a child.[1] Do you really want to have that experience while in a movie theater watching Harold & Kumar?
"Even at the 14-month
follow-up, 58% of 36 volunteers rated the experience on the psilocybin session as among the five most personally meaningful
experiences of their lives and 67% rated it among the five most
spiritually significant experiences of their lives, with 11% and
17%, respectively, indicating that it was the single most meaningful experience, and the single most spiritually significant experience. Furthermore, 64% of the 36 volunteers indicated that the
psilocybin session experience increased their sense of well-being
or life satisfaction either moderately or very much, and 61%
rated that the experience was associated with moderate to
extreme positive behaviour change."
I remember hearing a story, maybe from Ken Kesey, of someone who was given LSD during a medical trial and left with a pen and pad and told to write down how they felt about their mother. The researcher would be back later to get their notes and ask questions.
Research returns and is disappointed to find the pad empty and the subject unwilling to talk about his mother. The reason? He's just seen God and is busy drawing God on the wall.
So he utterly failed at his assigned task, but he had (arguably) achieved something far more important.
Absolutely this, from a personal experience. (Throwaway since a decent amount of people know who I am here.) I smoked a sizable amount (~4x my usual amount to get high) of marijuana one night with friends. They later reported me as simply staring into space, looking around, and saying random words from other languages. However, I was having one of the most incredibly profound, enlightened moments in my life, getting closer to understanding the basic questions behind life and what it is.
Nothing major... About a dozen different strains of magic mushroom, lsd, pot a few times, and opium once. I don't smoke hardly ever, but I do try to trip a few times a year.
Ahh, haha. I see. I've watched certain movies and shows that I found profound without tripping (surprisingly the most profound thing I've watched is the Futurama episode, Godfellas). I've done many many artistic things, drawing, painting, etc. We built things with legos before. Listened to different kinds of music. Played with animals (I swear my dog could sense something was up... never seen him in such a lovey mode). Once I mixed highlighter fluid with bubbles and created a "universe" on the wall in our basement (no windows, and all black lights at the time). I've done the mundane like play video games (went for an hour in GTA-IV sailing out to sea.. it never ends). Played music alone and with friends (recorded some). I've tried reading books. One time I took a programming quiz because I'd forgotten to and it was due within the hour (extremely hard). One of the most profound things I did was go on a several hour walk through only back alleys with friends and reflected on urban decay. There's more, but thats the best I can think of off the top of my head.
> Played with animals (I swear my dog could sense something was up... never seen him in such a lovey mode).
Psylocybin (however you spell it) actually tends to leak out through your sweat pores, so your dog was probably having just as fantastic of a time as you were.
When we did shrooms last time, we petted our cats for about an hour. Shortly after that, they went into the hallway and started chasing imaginary flies on the walls - leaping full-on into the wall, only to bounce off. They've been prone to that sort of thing ever since. :)
You plan out simple fun things like watching a movie or go to a party.
But after started, you won't get bored for sure, you may even try out new personalities just to see how people will react to that.
