I guess I was just asking an experienced user what would be the "easiest" to start out with. I understand that different things have different effects on people, but there still has to be something that you would recommend starting out with! For instance, after reading extensive amounts of material on this subject, I've decided that I would like to start with some sort of psilocybin mushroom. My question to you would then be; what are your favorite strains/ what are the easiest to obtain/ are there any that I should stay away from? I know that again, this differes from person to person, but I'm asking you directly because to be honest, I'm interested in your opinion 
Psilocybin mushrooms would be a good start. A very low toxicity, relatively easy to obtain (if ur experienced you can literally go out and pick ur own - i wouldnt recommend this to a noob tho) and a long history of human usage. The experience with psilocybin can vary from low dose visuals, to high dose full blown you are in a world of magic...Id recommend starting low, mebbe 2-3 grams at most, and from there work your way up.
When it comes to mushrooms, you want to avoid the poisonous ones lol...but nobody really is dealing or offering poisonous shrooms so i doubt you really need to worry about it if you have a secure source. Off the top of my head popular and easy strains cubensis, the liberty caps are easy to grow, and easy to find (depending on location) ...theres tons of strains, but unlike something like cannabis (sativa vs indica) the highs arent going to really differ all that much from strain to strain, all that really matters is that it contains Psilocybin. Dosing will prove to be more critical than what particular strain (as long as its not a poisonous shroom).
Id also be sort of leaning towards something like salvia if it was still around legally...I mean personally, it was by far the most balls out the walls trip ive had with anything, and I partook at a time in my life where I wasnt too experienced...in retrospect, the difference was taking the time to learn and expect what was coming (proper method of admistration, proper dosing, etc).
In the end, Id say mushrooms are a good step for one looking to dig a bit deeper...
Now, as for my intentions. I'm not looking for a recreational experience, per se... it seems to me that the fun part (i.e. tripping) is just a bonus. I'm much more interested in "finding myself" so to speak, and taking my experience and hopefully dissecting it in a way that will pertain to certain aspects of my life (whether it be a relationship, spiritual experience, or questions I have about the universe). I bold this last point because it is what I am most interested in. I (along with several others in this forum) am extremely interested in trying to figure out (scientifically, of course) what we don't already know about the universe. This might sound silly, but after reading countless trip reports on erowid and researching the profound effects that certain psychedelics can have on one's perception of time and ego, I believe that by taking certain psychedelic substances, I will be one step closer to discovering that "something" that is in the back of everyone's mind; that question that every person at some point or another has about consciousness, the universe, perception, and relativity. Again, this may sound silly, but I believe that by experiencing the phenomenon that I have so often read about (ego death, traveling through the universe, the absence of perception of time) firsthand, my mind will be better equipped to wrap around it and delve deeper into the mysteries of the universe.
This is getting me all hot and bothered right now...Aight good to hear. I will warn, a lot of folks seem to think that it works like magic. Yes, you will have an experience, but dont expect to come out of it knowing everything about the universe. It will provide you your own wisdom and insight, and learning the lessons the substance shows you takes time. Ive always enjoyed the way Mckenna put it when like,
My notion of what the psychedelic experience is, for us, that we each must become like fishermen, and go out on to the dark ocean of mind, and let our nets down into that sea. And what you're after is not some behemoth, that will tear through your nets, follow them and drag you in your little boat, you know, into the abyss, nor are what we're looking for a bunch of sardines that can slip through your net and disappear. Ideas like, "Have you ever noticed that your little finger exactly fits your nostril?", and stuff like that. What we are looking for are middle-size ideas, that are not so small that they are trivial, and not so large that they're incomprehensible. Middle-size ideas we can wrestle into our boat and take back to the folks on shore, and have fish dinner. And every one of us when we go into the psychedelic state, this is what we should be looking for. It's not for your elucidation, it's not part of your self-directed psychotherapy. You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is in danger by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness. And so to whatever degree any one of us can bring back a small piece of the picture and contribute it to the building of the new paradigm, then we participate in the redemption of the human spirit, and that after all is what it's really all about.
i dont think it could be said any better...
Is that difficult, just letting it go? I feel as though that would be my one issue for me. I tend to grasp on to things for as long as I can and work them around in my head so I can get a better idea of what I'm working with... which in some cases causes me to get "stuck" in certain mindsets when under the influence of drugs. I'm sure you know that feeling too... 
Only recently have I been able to say "fuck it" and dismiss something that may cause me to be disturbed. Is this something that I should work on, or is it not that big of a deal?
is it difficult? it can be...but ive always believed that given the proper setting, mental/physical preparation, an eager mind, and a good spotter eases a great deal of the tension and the anxiety. Personally, I felt no troubles breaking through in my experiences...had there been fear? absolutely...but fear is a good thing in small doses, its our response to let us know what we are feeling, the alien dimension that we seem to have stumbled upon, is as real as it gets... I will say, tho that depending on the dosage, it doesnt really matter if you want to give in or not...its going to happen. This is when all the preparation and relaxation you put into prior, comes into play. Its only a brief with certain substances, and with psilocybin theres actually takes more time for onset...that phase that can definitely help ease into things, or flipside it can cause you to go batshit scared over losing your mind...I think that might be the greatest fear people have, the unconscious picking away at thoughts that have been thrown into our minds over the years...the greatest solace I find is KNOWING that the substances I carefully choose to use, are not going to harm me. They arent going to melt my brain, Im simply exploring. Exploring a world as an alien, in an unimaginable landscape...and that puts me at peace with whatever Im dealing with.
I dunno my long way of saying its an easy thing to let go, but I just know there are far too many out there that would say otherwise.
Well, not until this very moment... haha. Generally speaking, I view whatever comes from my thoughts (be it completely ridiculous or extremely complicated and intricate) to be "mine". Now, we could get into an entire discussion about consciousness and perception, but for right now I'll just leave it at: whatever I think of when I'm high is something that would also run through my head when I'm sober... just, I would never think twice about it in my normal state. I feel as though I pay SO much more attention to detail, which, as aforementioned, can be good or bad, depending on what it is I'm thinking about.
However, I will admit that on several occasions (and thehabitatdoctor can attest to this) I have stated that plants are "smarter" than humans. Now, obviously, that's not exactly what I mean... however, they ARE the only organisms that have figured out how to harness the energy from the sun... (excluding some protists)... and they HAVE been around a lot longer than mammals. Really if you want to get twisted, one could argue that plants use humans to do their bidding, so to speak. Think about it. We plant them, harvest them, plant them again. What's the difference between the mutualistic relationship between the acacia tree and acacia ants, and plants and humans? We get food, we spread their seed; the ants get a home, the tree gets a better defense against giraffes. Furthermore, plants have managed to dominate the earth... WITHOUT THE ABILILTY TO MOVE. Sometimes I feel like the only person that is just astounded by this. Just think about it 
if we accept the idea that plants and diet had an impact on our neurochemical evolution...when we lept from the treetops of the jungles to the open grasslands...when the ego was created, plants have been evolving and living on this planet far longer than any human...its a stretch...but when you start to dig into things lke Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance, cannabis usage and human history seems to extend further than any historian is willing to admit... a sort of governining overmind that a species can tap into...hmmm...At this point its just sort of a feeling, not much research done into the possibility...but yea, this is the type of stupid stuff i think about on a daily basis. I do feel though, cannabis, the mother ganja, she deserves a thread of her own.
Ah yess! I cant remember the author...but I remember reading something a long time ago that suggested what you are getting at. Its a mindfuck if you begin to think, 'wait the plants are using humans this entire time'? Id only say, the complete and utter destruction of most of the rainforests on this planet would probably counter that whole idea...at least the human mind conquered (like everything else) yet another foe , being the plant kingdom...
But no symbiotic relationships between plants and humans...
"I am old, older than thought in your species, which is itself fifty times older than your history. Though I have been on earth for ages I am from the stars. My home is no one planet, for many worlds scattered through the shining disc of the galaxy have conditions which allow my spores an opportunity for life. The mushroom which you see is the part of my body given to sex thrills and sun bathing, my true body is a fine network of fibers growing through the soil. These networks may cover acres and may have far more connections that the number in a human brain. My mycelial network is nearly immortal, only the sudden toxification of a planet or the explosion of its parent star can wipe me out. By means impossible to explain because of certain misconceptions in your model of reality all my mycelial networks in the galaxy are in hyperlight communication across space and time. The mycelial body is as fragile as a spider's web but the collective hypermind and memory is a vast historical archive of the career of evolving intelligence on many worlds in our spiral star swarm. Space, you see, is a vast ocean to those hardy life forms that have the ability to reproduce from spores, for spores are covered with the hardest organic substance known. Across the aeons of time and space drift many spore-forming life-forms in suspended animation for millions of years until contact is made with a suitable environment. Few such species are minded, only myself and my recently evolved near relatives have achieved the hyper-communication mode and memory capacity that makes us leading members in the community of galactic intelligence. How the hypercommunication mode operates is a secret which will not be lightly given to man. But the means should be obvious: it is the occurrence of psilocybin and psilocin in the biosynthetic pathways of my living body that opens for me and my symbiots the vision screens to many worlds. You as an individual and man as a species are on the brink of the formation of a symbiotic relationship with my genetic material that will eventually carry humanity and earth into the galactic mainstream of the higher civilizations.
Since it is not easy for you to recognize other varieties of intelligence around you, your most advanced theories of politics and society have advanced only as far as the notion of collectivism. But beyond the cohesion of the members of a species into a single social organism there lie richer and even more baroque evolutionary possibilities. Symbiosis is one of these. Symbiosis is a relation of mutual dependence and positive benefits for both of the species involved. Symbiotic relationships between myself and civilized forms of higher animals have been established many times and in many places throughout the long ages of my development. These relationships have been mutually useful; within my memory is the knowledge of hyperlight drive ships and how to build them. I will trade this knowledge for a free ticket to new worlds around suns younger and more stable than your own. To secure an eternal existence down the long river of cosmic time I again and again offer this agreement to higher beings and thereby have spread throughout the galaxy over the long millennia. A mycelial network has no organs to move the world, no hands; but higher animals with manipulative abilities can become partners with the star knowledge within me and if they act in good faith, return both themselves and their humble mushroom teacher to the million worlds all citizens of our starswarm are heir to."
<3
Exactly where I'm coming from. Like a giant THC-soaked sponge 
you betcha
along with gabapentin, diclofenac, tizanadine and hydroxizine (anti-histamine) and a few others that don't have any cautions about operating heavy machinery. They do at least get me out of bed in the morning.
)
