DOSE: T+ 0:00	12 g	oral	Amanitas - A. muscaria	(dried)
T+ 0:30		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

For the past couple of years, I have been in a love affair with amanitas. A while back I discovered them on an ethnobotanical website, and have done them around 7-10 times in various doses. This being said I have never before experienced the full power of amanitas until yesterday.

T-0: Around noon my friend and I each ate 12 grams of grade a+ amanitas. While I, for the most part, enjoy the taste of amanitas, my friend had an incredibly hard time getting them down without gagging. Promptly after we finished eating, we got in the car and drove to one of our favorite places to go hiking, which is where we planned to spend our entire trip. As we were parking, about 30 minutes after ingestion, my friend threw up rather violently- something that I think saved her from experiencing what I would later on.

T-30: We started out walking on one of the trails we visit less frequently, and I began to feel the familiar onset of the amanitas. Everything around us began to feel surreal, and almost impossible. We sat on a log and smoked a bowl of a cannabis and tea mixture, and then continued down the path. We walked at a constant pace, mostly in silence, until we reached the end of the trail- a large waterhole. At this point all of the effects of the amanitas felt similar to my previous experiences: some visual distortion, a heightened sense of connection with the earth, and an intoxicated, dreamy demeanor. We climbed up some very large rocks looking over the water hole and laid down- this marks the end of my usual amanita experience.

T-90: We woke on the rocks, exponentially deeper into the trip than when we’d fallen asleep. We spoke for a while, and then, I suddenly felt as though I was being pulled right up- I stood up and quickly moved towards the water. My friend followed and we sat on a small rock in the middle of the water. It was almost impossible for me to resist the urge to jump in, but I did, and instead took off my shoes and submerged my feet in the water. It was cold to say the least (it's january) but physical sensations felt so much less important than doing what the amanitas told me to. After leaving my feet in for a while, I once again got up and started walking around the small rock. The texture of the moss was phenomenal, I began laughing almost hysterically in delight. After a couple of minutes of this, something came to me “we can not control anything”. I started repeating this to my friend, and the thought of being so powerless in this world gave us unprecedented bliss. We sat there for maybe 10 minutes, holding hands and repeating “we can not control anything- not a single thing!” The amanitas would go much further in teaching me this soon.

T-120: After walking around near the water hole for a while longer, we went back to our original rocks, and realized there was now a couple sitting rather close to us. This alarmed us, and we decided to begin to make our way back down the path. We sat down to put on our shoes- and I asked to see my phone to check the time. I think this was the biggest mistake I could have made at this point in my trip. My friend passed my my phone, and while I checked the time I saw that I had a message from a loose acquaintance saying he had seen us where we were hiking. This was already a little unsettling, as we were unsure if we seemed inebriated/ at what point he had seen us. I tried to type a quick response but realized that while I could form sentences out loud, I was completely incapable of transferring them to text. The keyboard itself made no sense, and my mind kept looping in and out of what I was supposed to be typing. About 20 minutes of typing later, I managed a three word “man, really, where?” and gave my phone back to my friend who was carrying the bag. The rest of the walk back was enjoyable- other than when we would run into other people, which was incredibly startling at the time. We got back to the car, which is subsequently when I was overpowered by the substance, and thrown into what I can only describe as an infinite loop.

T-180: Sitting in the back of my friend’s car, I could not hold one thought for longer than a couple of seconds without it morphing into a completely different thought. Upon getting to the car, we had decided that we would set an alarm and take an hour long nap. This however proved incredibly difficult, as every time I would go to set the alarm I would snap out of the loop about 5 minutes later having accomplished nothing. I can best describe what happened next as the constant mingling of a couple of thoughts: set an alarm, eat something, go to the bathroom, drive home, look up if I am dying. These five thoughts looped together and circled through my brain at the speed of light. My friend later told me that I sat there speaking nonsense for a couple minutes at a time until I would snap out of it- and in a moment of clarity say we were going to do one of the things. Then, as I would set off to accomplish that task, I would immediately fall back into the loop. At this point I was very cold, clammy, and shaking profusely. While I have studied amanitas and their effects for years, and am aware that death is very rare- all I could think was that this had to be the end. It seemed impossible for me to ever go back to a normal brain from where I currently was. What turned out to be about three hours felt like a truly infinite span of time. I was terrified, but in awe of the amanitas and their decision to show me what strength they really possess, and how in control of me they were.

T-270: The next thing I can clearly remember is pulling into a parking lot of a grocery store (my friend had made the decision to drive us towards civilization while I was still in my hysterical state). She left the car to buy food and I realized that being alone was not something I could handle at that moment. I called my other friend, who it turns out I had also called while I was in the loop, she was obviously concerned, but being experienced with psychedelics herself, was able to reaffirm that I was not going to die, and stayed on the line with me until my other friend returned. We then sat in her car, drank peach nectar and ate something (I honestly can’t remember what). I began to come to terms with what had happened. The next couple of hours were incredibly strange- I felt as though I was teetering between the real world and the loop, I could almost visualize being right on the edge of reality and complete nothingness. Whenever I would feel myself slipping into “the void”, it would take all of the strength and concentration I had in me to focus in on something real. This was exhausting. We then went home, slept, and later went to see our friends band perform. At the performance I felt mostly back to normal, but social interaction seemed alien to me, and my friend and I spent the majority of the time sitting by ourselves talking about our day.

Overall, I am incredibly thankful for this experience. The amanitas definitely had a plan for me, teaching me I had no control very early on in the experience, and then showing me how real that statement was by throwing me into the loop. It was far from a pleasant experience, but I think what I have learned from it will stay with me permanently. I will do amanitas again, and I would even consider doing the same dose again, but I do think from now on I will have to separate myself from my phone completely (as I think that is what first entered me into the loop) and devote longer periods of time to the trip.

Amanitas are now more of an enigma to me than ever before, I think I felt false confidence in my knowledge of their potential, and they had to show me that they are far more powerful than I will ever begin to understand. I look forward my next dance with the fly agaric, but it is now more clear to me than ever before: the amanitas will always be the leader.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 107768
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Apr 28, 2020	Views: 1,096
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Amanitas - A. muscaria (70) : Public Space (Museum, Park, etc) (53), Combinations (3), General (1)