DOSE: T+ 0:00		oral	Amanitas - A. muscaria	(ground / crushed)
T+ 1:00		oral	Amanitas - A. muscaria	(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

3rd time - Amanita muscaria / fly agaric - “Lucky, lucky me”

Experiences:
Positive or neutral experiences with: BZP, TFMPP+BZP, salvia, mescaline, 5-MeO-DMT, DMT, ketamine, kratom, GHB, adrafanil, psilocybin, amanita muscaria, lsd, calcium bufotenate, ayahuasca, nitrous oxide
Negative experiences with: 2C-C, HBWR, MDMA, cannabis

Overview: This experience was over eight years ago, so dosages and timeline are rough estimates. It was also my one very stupid experience with drugs, and I'm very grateful that I came back intact. My experience is dramatically different than all the other published reports that I have read (and I often have idiosyncratic experiences with drugs), so do not assume that A. muscaria will produce similar results for you.

Preparation: Amanita muscaria was identified from New Zealand's North Island. Several hundred were collected, sliced thin, then dried at low temperature in a food dehydrator over several days. The slices were then ground to a find powder and dried again. The powder was combined. The large amount harvested and combined was to account for variability of potency from specimen to specimen, resulting in a large quantity with a more consistent average dosage that could be approximated after titrating upwards from low doses. The powder was sealed in an airtight, opaque vessel and stored in a freezer to slow the inevitable steep decline in potency.

Attempt one:
A small amount, maybe 1/3 of what is typically considered a common dose, was stirred into to distilled water heated to and kept at a constant temperature (??)for 30+ minutes. The infusion was strained and consumed on an empty stomach. It's probably the only psychedelic that can be described as delicious. I would (have) made soup out of it if it wasn't active. Now I can't stand the faintest whiff of it, like many people after that “one night on tequila.”

Attempt two:
Several weeks to a month later, the same preparation method was used with 2/3 of a common dose. No effects were felt.

Attempt three, the unbelievably stupid one:
A friend that described himself as having “lots of experience with psychedelics, especially mushrooms” joined me for the experience. The same preparation method was used for an amount equivalent to a common dose. After an hour, no effects were felt whatsoever. (I now know that effects do not usually appear for at least two hours. ) We elected to redose with double the amount of the first dose. Roughly 45 minutes later, some mild disinhibition and drunkenness was felt. Wanting to increase the effects, we took an amount roughly equivalent to the first dose again. You'll notice that the prep time doesn't coincide with the timeline—that's just how I remember it.

Within a fifteen minutes or so, the psychedelic come-up began in earnest. My experience was one where I retained almost total lucidity (definitely Shulgin ++), but where I experienced an extraordinary feast of visual confection. Visuals included: colour enhancement, unusual scenery slicing, and finely cut lines in geometric patterns etched into my visual field. There were periods where I blacked out, but for periods of time so short that I perceived them as strobing—it did not result in feelings of alarm. Vibrant rainbow hues often overlay my field of vision, and everything was infused with sharpness and rich, nondescript significance. It felt delightfully recreational and playful, very easygoing for the intensity, not mindfucky at all and certainly not likely to produce productive introspection.

My companion shared my experience closely for the first couple of hours, and we walked around the suburbs and the parks, chatting and enjoying ourselves. He came up with a whimsical fantasy where we were archetypal Christ-like demiurges. I played along with his fantasy for a while, because it was fun. Then it developed into a genuine conviction. The rare, accursed Messiah complex that plagues hallucinogens. He became convinced that we needed to go downtown in the middle of the night and proclaim that we were angels sent to tell everyone that all they needed was love. We was quite adamant about it.

The next thirteen or so hours were spent trying to gently redirect his attention, distract him, and generally keep him preoccupied so that he didn't get us arrested and institutionalized. It was a long, long, long night for me, and longer yet from him. After thirteen hours, my roommate came home. Fortunately, he was a grounded and compassionate guy who had a decade back gotten messed up on acid thoroughly enough that he was out to lunch for almost a year; he knew just what to do, taking over for me while I got some badly needed rest. When I awoke in four or five hours, I was functionally down from the effects of the drug, although certainly not at baseline due to sleep loss and the intensity of the preceding night. My tripping companion was presumably no longer under the effects of the drug, but he still maintained that he was the messiah. After he returned to his friends and family, we kept in contact. His life was pretty derailed there for many months, and he would occasionally contact me in line with his messianic ideation, suggesting we do things that no sane, sober person would consider. He did eventually return to baseline, but it took time, care, and compassion from the people around him.

Summary: What produced a pleasant, long-lasting, purely-recreational experience for one seasoned tripper sent another to cloud cuckoo land. The dose was ludicrously high—we're lucky we survived, given the reputation of the substance. The side-effects were non-existent. The experience was unlike any described: no delirium, no alternating periods of arousal and dreamy somnolence, no distortion of spatial perception (ie, shrinking or balooning of limbs), no nausea, no salivation, nothing. If I had done it alone, I would definitely have repeated the experience at a much lower dosage, although the duration was unpleasant. I also probably would have ascribed my positive experience to my weird biochemistry, as I can't stand cannabis or MDMA, but love things like salvia and 5-MeO-DMT; however, it was shared by my companion. Perhaps the effects of carefully prepared A. muscaria become truly psychedelic at high doses, but given the experience above I would not recommend it to anyone.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 105264
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Dec 27, 2020	Views: 1,315
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Amanitas - A. muscaria (70) : General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)