DOSE: T+ 0:00	3.0 g	oral	Mushrooms - P. cubensis	(tea)
T+ 0:20	3.0 g	oral	Mushrooms - P. cubensis	(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

I'm a high school student who generally has a pretty positive outlook on life. I consider myself intelligent and philosophical. I am fairly healthy. I am not however very steady, in that often I am depressed, and often I am elated; perhaps a slight manic personality. Nonetheless, most people who meet me think of me as a generally cheerful person.

I've also compiled many psychoactive experiences in my life. When I took the voyage I am about to describe I had already taken mushrooms over twenty times, LSD two or three times, LSA, DXM about twenty times and cannabis over one thousand times. Apart from those hallucinogens, I'd taken ecstasy several times, methylphenidate far too much, a handful of cocaine binges, and some opiates, and I was beginning to get slightly addicted to alcohol.

The time when I took this trip was a somber time of my life. It was the end of the school year and though this is my favourite time of the year I had recently broken up with a girl I was very fond of and was still recovering from quitting smoking. Also I was in my worst state of drug addiction ever at the time, I was abusing prescription drugs all day almost every day, drinking, and really doing whatever I could get my hands on. My mental health was quite low at this point, I felt very distant and lost.
I'd found that I almost always got something permanent and beneficial out of magic mushrooms in the past and I thought that I needed their healing qualities now more than ever.

So one Friday on a sunny and lovely day I gathered several friends and we purchased about an ounce together. Six grams were to be mine. We went to my house which was vacant for the weekend and a comfortable and familiar setting. I smoked a large joint with my friends about an hour before dosing on magic mushrooms, it was probably about 4:00: in the afternoon at this point.

I regretted smoking the pot, because I find that pot dulls my mind considerably and it also dulls my mood and I was taking these mushrooms to expand my mind and mood and do some real soul searching which is something I would find harder to achieve with marijuana blocking my brain.

I waited about an hour for the pot's peak to wear out and then took 3 grams of mushrooms in a tea form.

0:00: Mushroom tea tastes awful, to the point where I had to chug it with my nose plugged. The strain of mushrooms was Psilocybin cubensis in a dried form. P. cubensis is a potent form of mushrooms which grows naturally in my area (Pacific North West) but these were home grown mushrooms.

0:20: Feeling slightly surreal but no definitive mushroom feelings as of yet. My friends and I went outside and sat in my flowery and colourful garden. Everybody had already dosed and one or two people said they were beginning to feel high. I decided to eat the other three grams of my mushrooms, I chewed them thoroughly.

0:30: Feeling anxious and nervous, these are my usual coming up on mushroom feelings so I know that my trip is beginning. Some of my friends are smoking pot but I declined, knowing that pot would add to my currently only slight unease.

0:40: I stopped talking, no longer being able to find words to describe anything. This is very common for me on hallucinogens, I can't find anything worth saying so I say nothing. It beats babbling like an idiot. I stood up and walked inside, this is when I realised just how high I had become. Walking about five metres to my house's door was difficult. Lines of reference and perspective seemed warped, i.e. looking at the door it appeared as if the top of the frame was coming towards me and the bottom of the door was far further away. I stumbled inside. A few friends followed me in. I lay down on a couch and stared at a ceiling. My friends were all talking about how 'fucked up' they were and trying to describe it which is really boring: 'Dude it's like my mind and my body are in a cosmos of yadah yadah yadah'

0:50: I couldn't take much more of my friends inane drivelling. It wasn't that I was angry at them, they were just detracting from my goal of self discovery and they were enjoying mushrooms in a different way than I was. They were all relatively inexperienced shroomers, maybe they'd done it two or three times each. So I left them and went upstairs.

1:00: I'm noticing a change in colours, instead of brightness and colours that most people report with hallucinogens I found everything got grayed out to the point where it was hard to distinguish items. There was green fading in and out around the edge of my vision. Walking up the stairs was a difficult and amusing procedure.

1:10: I went to the bathroom and then I noticed that everything was moving. A towel on the floor was swaying around like a leaf but interestingly it never got further or closer to or from anything else in the room, the walls and sink and everything seemed to move around the towel to compensate for the swaying. I was amused and yet nervous about this. Because well…towels don't move by themselves.

1:20: Lying on my bed seemed like a safe thing to do. Closing my eyes produced no visuals and I was unable to keep them closed for more than about four seconds anyway so I looked around my room concentrating on breathing and relaxation. I saw some pretty strange visual things including faces and bodies on my ceiling and I heard all kinds of whispering voices.

1:30: Still lying on my bed I managed to stop looking around and start thinking of myself. I felt a strong sense of Deja vu, like I'd been in this mental place before. I felt like my brain had been hit with a hammer and shattered like glass and now it was up to me to reassemble the pieces. I figured if this was the case then how I reassembled the pieces could change how I was after the psilocybin had worn off. I said to myself well I'm going to reassemble myself into a wonderful and improved new person, the mushrooms have given me a chance to change myself how I want. So I made some decisions. I was going to stop letting methylphenidate consume me. I was going to respect my body and mind as it is my temple. I'm going to be more loving and caring. I'm going to be beautiful. At the same time there was a definite negativity to this procedure as I was seeking out all my faults and fixating on them and how to change them. I don't know why but whenever on magic mushrooms I always think about what's wrong with me and not what's right. Other drugs allow me to think about what's right with me like ecstasy for example.

2:00: After a good half our of self therapy and calming I felt ready to face the world. I walked downstairs which proved more difficult than I thought possible because vantage points kept moving and swaying and shifting. Once downstairs I joined my friends and allowed myself to get involved in their doings.

3:00: We all spent an hour together talking about mushrooms and trying to put the pieces together on what happened. At times I felt completely sober and at other times I was enwrapped in confusion and some paranoia.

4:00: I was feeling really good now, a sense of wellbeing and comfort and the mushrooms began to diminish but I was content.

7:00: I felt more or less sober and was ready to drive a few friends home and what not. The trip was over for all of us and I think that everybody had had a good time. I was happy with what I had felt and although was somewhat stunned and still trying to put the last pieces together I felt ready to try the world with my newly reassembled mind.

The aftermath: I weaned myself off methylphenidate. I had very little interest in it after that trip. I haven't done it in several months now and I hope I don't ever again. I cut down on codeine and pot. I started getting over losing my girlfriend and rekindled a good friendship with her. My general mood was more positive and I felt wiser. The friends I shared that trip with became closer to me. I felt that mushrooms had taught me most of what they needed to show me and when I took mushrooms again after that the effects were less special and I felt as if I was abusing them.

Last words: I wish to repeat this procedure of learning aided by hallucinogens again some time when I am ready and when it is necessary. In retrospect using mushrooms at such a young age is very dangerous. My brain is not still fully developed and my brain chemistry is still developing. I have been lucky to have helped myself on that occasion but I know that other trips and other drugs have damaged my psyche possibly perfectly. I think that hallucinogens are genuinely dangerous and should not be tampered with, I believe they are less dangerous for people who already know their place in the world. This is because I'm young and mushrooms are powerful and messing with my brain chemistry at this age is messing with chaos. I may be able to handle it but I would not guarantee that anybody else would come out with such a positive result.

If you are happy with yourself and can laugh at life, especially yours; then you know the secret… no worries.

- G. Huckell

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 17140
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 27, 2005	Views: 5,315
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)