I don't know much about the science of any of this. And as a 25 year old, I've only dabbled in psychedelics a handful of times. I've tried salvia divinorum, pilocybin mushrooms and for the first time a few days ago, LSD. I am basing my answer purely on how I perceived each experience.

My first Mushroom experience was absolute joy and ecstacy. I remember laughing non stop for hours. The park I was at was so vivid, it was 6am and the sun was beginning to come up. It slowly lit up the trees and I cried. It was so beautiful. Each subsequent trip has been around a similar theme. Connecting with nature and understanding the absolute beauty and wonder of our natural world and ourselves. I experienced some amazing visuals. Mainly just everything looking really vivid. On my most recent trip I experienced walls turning into flipping tiles, the bathroom in my friends house which was completely white, turned into a magical reflective rainbow room when we turned the light on. It sometimes gets very intense and I find that I do get freaked out at a certain point. But that always passes and the experience overall is totally uplifting and euphoric. I'm always left with a feeling of calm for a couple of weeks after taking mushrooms.

For the first time ever, I took LSD last Sunday night. My close friends and I (who I'd taken all my trips with previously) were at a trance gig. We couldn't find any MDMA so we took a tab each instead. Naturally I was a bit nervous. It took about an hour to come on but it came on hard and fast. I found myself being torn internally between negative and positive emotions. It made me shaky and I had to get out of the club, it was too much.

I started walking and couldn't stop. I walked for over and hour just looping the city center, feeling the trip get harder and harder. Luckily my friend managed to find me and this helped me to relax. We sat on the waterfront for an hour just taking about the experience. I explained that I felt disgusting. I felt completely overwhelmed with emotions, thoughts and ideas. It was as if everything I ever knew, was, saw, heard.. was all overflowing. One second I wanted to cry, the next I was laughing. I found it really strange and upsetting. I told her that I had to leave and go home. I figured the trip would wear off once I was in a safe and comfortable environment. I was so wrong.

I got home and jumped into bed. nope. Definitely no sleeping for me. I got up and sat on the couch. My cat comes walking up to me.. his fur was almost glowing and when I looked into his eyes they shone back at me intensely. I could sense his life force and we connected. It felt so amazing. After cuddling with him, staring outside at the moon and watching the walls breathe in and out, I decided to put some YouTube videos on to distract myself. Naturally I searched videos for tripping lol.

Anyways, I found countless videos about human consciousness, the structure of the lives we live, social oppression and how we treat each other and our planet. It sounds terribly cliche I know. But watching these videos while under the influence of LSD has literally has change my life. It has stripped away everything I ever thought about what is important in life and what the only mission should be — to love and put as much positvivity into the world as humanly possible. I felt like my essence was being ripped out and mixed with the rest of the world’s energy. I felt like I was in everything, and everything was in me.

The strangest part of all of this is that I have always been a very spiritual and deep person. I have always loved fiercely and believed that people are the most important reason to get out of bed. The LSD experienced solidified what I already knew about myself and the rest of the world. That we are not meant to be mechanical shells living out a life that has been mapped for us, which we are trapped in. Bearing the ever increasing weight of financial and social pressure, feeling our very essence slipping away as we fall deeper and deeper into how we are told it needs to be.

But it also gave me an unimaginable sense of hope. The feeling that I can make a difference to the world by loving with my whole being every single day. spreading positivity. Not worrying about being perceived as weak by certain people in society. And what the true mission is.

Its early days, but I feel that the experience has created a turning point in my life. I, like many people out there, was at breaking point before I had this experience. And i didn't even know it, until the trip bought it out.

In conclusion, I found mushrooms to be a beautiful and uplifting experience that helped me to get to know myself and the living world better. And I would highly recommend trying that before LSD. It it intense, but like other people have said, I feel that you are naturally guided through the trip and there is a deeper sense of calm.

LSD completely shook me to my core. It bought everything I'd ever felt to the surface, an