DOSE:

2 g

oral

Mushrooms

BODY WEIGHT:

65 kg

If you start reading this, please, give it a chance and finish it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that I think are important to tell in this report, so this text is going to be long and tough, just like the whole experience was. Also, I live in Brazil, so please forgive me if I made some grammar mistakes.

The last year was especially difficult for me, as an atheist, logical and cynical about everything, so I decide that was time for me to figure out what was going on my mind and my life that none of the rational answers could solve, not even explain. I started at an ayahuasca ceremony that taught me a lot and gave me the straight to keep searching for myself. Just for the record, I smoke weed regularly, and sometimes I use MDMA, ecstasy, and LSD.

Here begins my report:

A friend gave me 4 grams of mushrooms, which he had bought at an online store. I was at my parent’s home and I decided to try 2g believing that nothing was going to happen. Took them around 10pm, took a shower and went to bed while listening to some music.

About 40 minutes after I took them, I started to feel weird, uncomfortable; I move myself but couldn’t find a position. At the same time, I started to feel confusion, I was aware that I was uncomfortable but not even thought that I had to do something about it.
Some time passed, and I started to feel cold, my hands and feet were freezing; I touched my body and my skin was really cold but at the same time I was sweating a lot. I was feeling like I was sick and had the same sensations of a fever. But again, I just acknowledge the fact and stood up to find a blanket. The blanket didn’t help, just made me sweat more.

I was there, was aware that I was not physically ok, but I was indifferent because all my attention was turned to my thoughts. It was a state that looked like a dream at the same time that I was talking to myself. I had the strong and convincing feeling that I had been everyone in this world, and the true me was a gay man (I’m a straight woman). I started to see two men having sex and it was beautiful and exciting, and every touch was incredible, warm and intimate.

When I realized that I was not a man in this life, everything vanished and I got out of the bed and went to the kitchen looking for a glass of water. My mom heard me walking and asked me to open the door for the dog, so he could piss outside. I could easily speak, and when I open my mouth I was lucid and aware of everything around me, but everything looked different at the same time that looked very familiar.

I opened the door and a breeze came in, which made me feel really good. I took a walk outside the house and started to feel better, energized and happy. The wind, the fact that I could see the sky and have a bigger perspective calm me down and took away a heavy sensation on my body that I hadn’t recognized before. I wanted to stay outside, but was close to the window of my mom’s bedroom. She knows everything I do, so I wasn’t worried that she would wake up and see me, just really didn’t want to disturb her sleep. All I could feel was tenderness.

I went back to my room, and I was feeling good, still feeling a little bit sick, but the more I moved my body the better I felt. I was excited, feeling like a flow of joy was passing through me, my thoughts were fast and I started talking to myself. I had an urge to speak, to communicate, everything was special and I wanted everyone to know.

I took my cellphone with a bad feeling about it. I hate cellphones and texting messages, but at that situation, it was the only way, and it felt good that at least I had a way. I texted to my friend, the one who gave me the mushrooms, and told him I was tripping hard. I wanted to make a record in case I forgot, because everything was so wonderful that I didn’t wanted to let it go. It was really hard to type; I was struggling to keep myself. My mind was working in a different speed than my body, and I could see everything, but not in a position of understanding, but in a position of contemplation. I had to make an incredible effort to make the ideas intelligible.

The first thought was that I realized that I’m living my life being the third person, always seeing myself living from a distance, protected by that distance, never facing life, never participating, just watching from inside of myself, keeping me safe thanks to the disconnection that I had created. Then, I thought that this could be a memory mechanism, being the third person means I’m living my memories, always playing them in a new situation and putting me in the same positing that I stood in the memory. That meant for me that if I’m reliving my memories, I am not creating new ones. I’m not putting myself in new positions and situations, just recreating everything based on the previous situations I had lived.

When I finished telling this to my friend I realized how familiar everything was. I always knew that, and the world always looked like that, bright and constantly moving. Even the stripes, the shadows, the window, everything was alive and moving in a coordinated rhythm. I knew that was a visual effect of the mushrooms, but it didn’t look like a hallucination, it was more like a very special look of reality that I had never seen before but always felt.

Nothing was scary; there was no space for fear or despair. Just the sweet and calm reality in all its essence. And I was part of the essence of reality, I was everyone again. And occurred to me that it doesn’t matter how complex and different we are from the ancient men and the ancient civilizations, because nothing had changed, the wholeness was like a constant thing that is always moving, but is the same at it was millenniums ago.

For a moment I consciously feared that I would became crazy, not because everything looked different, but because what I was experiencing was real and the life I was used to living didn’t make any sense. All the pain, the suffering, the anxiety, the depression, the hurry, the questions, the expectations, the attachment I have for people, ideas or things, none of this makes sense and is destroying me and everyone else, is taking my energy and ruining my spirit and mind. So, there was no reason why I should feel or cling to these things. I feared appearing crazy, and I feared choosing to remain in that state of conscious, accepting that in everyone’s eyes I would look crazy. I didn’t want to go back being “normal”, being what I was before that night.

I saw myself naked in a desert (I think this image is highly influenced by the books of Carlos Castaneda), it was night and the sky was huge with a lot of stars, and I was prostrating before the wholeness, struggling to hold on. But I wasn’t me only, I was mankind, on my knees, struggling.

And I was struggling, making a huge effort to stay conscious and make a logical and intelligible thought that could be spoken, trying to reduce to words what I was feeling. I felt that I was falling into a void, and everything, the wholeness, was in that void, and if I didn’t tried to be conscious about it everything would pass through me without my acknowledgement. I couldn’t let that happen.

And suddenly I understood what death was. Death is the state of swimming in the void without consciousness. My effort to remain conscious was an act of life, because in the minute I stop being conscious and dive in the void I won’t be me anymore, I will be everything, I will be the wholeness. Knowledge and understanding are acts of life that can only see a glimpse of things, and I will only be able to see everything when I stop being me, and I stop trying to see and just become everything.

What was holding me to life was nothing but my own body. I didn’t want to kill myself or hurt myself in any way. I considered this possibility but the instant certainty was that I was alive to be alive, and my body will see its end by its own time. It didn’t make sense to hurt myself, and that include living in a self-destructive way, bad eating habits, drinking too much alcohol, neglecting my health, not taking care of my environment, smoking to pass time, doing too much drugs just to lose myself for a moment, working beyond my body and mind capability, spending too many nights awake. I understood my responsibility of taking care of the only thing that was gave to me.

Yet, it was my body the element that was keeping me blind to the reality I was living that night. My body is strong, my brain is strong, and they keep me a part of the reality while they create their own. The only way of glimpsing the ultimate reality (forgive me for this expression; I don’t know how to call it. It felt so real. That is reality for me now) was putting my body and brain in a weakened state. That’s where the mushroom comes in, with the ayahuasca and other substances. The mushroom was making me weak so I could stop protecting myself, so I could stop filtering aspects of reality and finally see what’s beyond me. I was poisoning myself, that’s why I had a fever. At this point, I could still feel my body struggling to get rid of the substance. I wasn’t poisoning myself to death, just enough to put my walls down for a little bit. Actually, I’m glad that my body does this job, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to live a reproductive life. When I say “I’m glad” it is because I chose not to be crazy.

Little by little, an overwhelming feeling took place in me, and I was laughing and crying at the same time. I started to dance in my room, more like moving in a very weird way, feeling nothing but joy and laughing, and I thought out loud “You are the crazy ones for trying to create a meaning of all of this, all I can do is laugh”.

I wanted to express myself, so I tried to write something, which came out like this:

“I came here for a reason.
I choose this language for a reason.
And I choose this mean for a reason.
I really hope I could make some sense out of this, because it’s something that I cannot just leave behind.
This world is freaking madness,
How I can even express myself is madness.
I think we are actually, and intently, posing ourselves. And that’s just great! That’s the only way we can see anything. And even the fact that Im choosing to express myself through language writing, is a way of limitate things. The fact that I choose the English to do this is even more limitating.
I’m just wondering… and wondering.
This is freaking awesome, and is awesome because the only limit to myself is myself
The effort to make some sense out of this is enormous, and maybe I cannot behold.'

Some minutes after that I heard a noise coming from my brother’s bedroom, so I knocked and opened his door. He was lying on the floor while his girlfriend was on the bed, and they were bought awake. When I asked if everything was ok, he said yes and that they couldn’t sleep because it was a really hot night and there was no wind coming in. I went back to my bedroom, sat on my chair and started to stare at my room. My room is bigger, with a double bed and a big window. And I felt how horrible I am for holding that room for myself while I'm not even living in that house anymore. I spend holydays and vacations there, but most part of the year I am at college, and I always demanded that no one slept in my bed instead of me. I never liked my brother’s girlfriend, and I felt how bitter I was for that. I felt ashamed for being so selfish and arrogant, I felt disgust for myself. It was not judging myself, I was only seeing and feeling the bitterness of my actions and thoughts.

My dad got home from work at 4am (he is a builder and is working in a restaurant inside of a mall, so he can only work at night), I was so happy that he was home, safe, that I started to cry and touch him on the arm occasionally (occasionally just not to look weird hugging him in the way that I wanted). I said everything was ok, I was just worried about him. He went to sleep and the dog came to my room wanting to lay in bed with me (the dog’s name is Dellius, we call him De).

De was beautiful, his eyes was so sweet and tender. He lay down with me and all I could think was that I wanted to take care of him and my family. That is why I’m here, to take care of them and of everyone in my life. It may sound ridiculous, but having De with me fills me with a joy and contemplation. I mentioned this feeling of joy before, and trust me, every one of them was different, but I can’t explain how.

It was already 5am and I couldn’t sleep, my body was exhausted, drained, and my mind didn’t want to think anymore. I lay down in bed and got up several times. My eyes didn’t want to be close. I force myself to fall sleep and with my eyes closed I started to see a dirty wall and a lot of disgusting insects coming out, then I saw the living room and it turned to an awful scene with blood all over it and pieces of meat (didn’t matter if it was human or not). None of that scared me, it just was unpleasant. I really don’t know why these images came to me, but they really don’t matter to me.

I end up sleeping, and woke up at 11am still feeling a little vibration around me. I told my mom what happened, and spent the day hugging her and everyone in the house.

My life didn’t become easier since that night (which had happened about 3 nights ago), everything looks the same. I still suffer from the same things, still feel anxious and sad about some situations and some people. I still react in the same egocentric and selfish way. But now, I started to recognize these situations, and in the instant I recognize them, they turn into something so heavy that I try to take them out of me. It's not easy, and I haven’t really succeeded. But that’s something I have to work on. The miracle happened when I lived this experience. The rest is up to me to change it.

Thank you for reading this!

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 105621
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: Nov 9, 2022	Views: 619
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Mushrooms (39) : General (1), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), First Times (2), Alone (16)