DOSE:

8.5 g

oral

Mushrooms

(tea)

[Erowid Note: The dose described in this report is very high, potentially beyond Erowid's 'heavy' range, and could pose serious health risks or result in unwanted, extreme effects. Sometimes extremely high doses reported are errors rather than actual doses used.]

Last night, I had the most intense experience of my life. It was new years eve and a bunch of friends were here, at my house, for the party. Myself, and three others had bought some psilocybin mushrooms, and we decided to make tea out of them. We divided the dried caps and stems into four parts, about eight to nine grams for me, five grams for Shannon, and two-and-a-half grams each for Tyler and Joey. We boiled some water, poured it into four mugs, added some flavourful tea bags, and then each added our share of the mushrooms. We had all had experiences with psilocybin before, and I was anticipating the altered patterns of thought, that I could identify with and recognize apart from everyday thought. I was seeking a different perspective on the questions that I had been pondering and perhaps insight into some creative outlet. What I actually ended up experiencing was something that I had never before experienced.

I should say a little bit about who I am and what my life is comprised of first, I suppose. So, anyways, for the last year or so, I have been actively persuing spiritual progress, and I've been practicing vipassana meditation for about 8 months. Through meditation, I have begun to find a kind of peace that transcends the vicissitudes of life. I have come in to contact with who I really am; the divine puppet master of this body and anything else that I am conscious of. Call it god, love, allah, spirit, whatever. So I have been seeking the complete realization of what it means to be human, what it means to be alive. I seek the enlightenment that is the highest goal of all religions and spiritual practices. I desire to desire no longer. This is my life.

I was first aware that some foreign influence was in my mind after about 15-20 minutes, and I recognized the gradually intensifying mind/body high as what I had experienced in previous mushroom adventures. This time, however; there seemed to be no summit. It just kept getting more and more intense. I was in my bedroom with about 8 or so people, including Shannon, and Tyler. Shannon and I were trying our best to communicate how we were feeling to each other, but my mind was so enveloped by the expanding high that I couldn't keep up with what people were saying or doing. I caught glimpses and heard the occasional remark directed to me, but I could not concentrate on it long enough to respond, for the most part. I was experiencing one extreme after another, hot, cold, pain, bliss, itching, peace, love, sadness, fear, etc.

I realized that this was what the mushroom high was all about for me. It was about changing a part of my awareness to be able to see that this whole life experience is just a series of different sensations. We normally aren't aware of it because it's happening so fast, and we're so accustomed to it that we just react to the sensations without a second thought. I'm talking about things that normally happen within a fraction of a fraction of a second, all the time. All of this kept intensifying until I could no longer cope with both worlds. I had to shut out one of them and I decided to shut out the dimension that is what we normally call reality. I curled up into a ball, on my bed, with my head tucked into my arms. People were asking me if I was alright, and I somehow managed to say 'Yes, I'm fine' So they let me be.

After about five minutes, everything changed. It started to all slow down a bit, and I came to my senses, or at least I thought I had. So I walked out of my room, unaware that there were a bunch of people in there, talking, listening to music, smoking weed, etc. I went upstairs and sat on the couch beside my mother, who was watching some movie with German subtitles. My long-haired Himalayan cat, Simba, lay between us, and he was beautiful. He seemed to be glowing with white light. I pet him for a few minutes, then turned to the TV screen and was vaguely aware of some German tourists in Japan, trying to get somewhere. The next thing I remember, I was downstairs, although I do not recall physically walking down there. I sat on the top of the back of a couch, facing backwards, and then I fell back onto the couch, between two people, who were a bit shocked. They asked me if I was alright, again, and I replied 'Yes'.

The most beautiful experience I've ever had became my reality. I became conscious after seemingly being blacked out for some time, and I felt that I had crossed over into some other dimension where only peace existed. I was in the living room, and everybody that had been in there before me falling over the couch, was there, except, they were now glowing with love and truth. They spoke with me as if I had been gone for a thousand years and had just returned, and everything was in divine order and balance. Everyone was lit with a smile, and as they talked to me one, by one, they looked directly into my eyes, and as they did, I felt that I was talking to angels. They had the forms and personalities of my friends, but they were completely balance and peaceful, and they were so happy that I had joined them. I felt that I had left the material world and entered heaven or nirvana. I felt absolutely no fear or anxiety, and it was as if everything that I had been searching for in life had been found. I was complete. There was nothing left to discover, because I had found the truth. I was certain of it. I was absolutely sure that I had realized my full potential as a human being. I decided that I should experiment and put forth some tests for this new world.

I began to be aware of the stream of opposites and extremes again, and I decided to not worry about it at all. I just accepted it. Then felt an urge to urinate. So I walked to the bathroom and relieved my bladder, only to find, after returning to the living room that my bladder was full again. I repeated this several times, and was amazed. This seemed to fit with the fact that I had become enlightened, because I realized that I could do anything; just by thinking of it. I had been consciously creating the reality of the need to pee. Everything changed again, and I vaguely remember visions of the characters in the movie 'Spiderman' discussing the truth about the universe, and then I was in the bathroom again.

The shower seemed to be glowing with the same white light as my cat, so I stripped down and got in. At first, the water was nice and warm. I was comfortable, and my awareness was directed to the light that seemed to permeate me and the shower. My life began to flash before my eyes. I thought about all of the desires and comforts and pleasures and horrors that I had been through, from a perspective of balance and peace. I had let go of those experiences, and was now complete. I began to think about meditation, and just as I started to concentrate on oneness, I felt as if all of my friends, the angels, had become one with me. They were an intimate part of the reality that was myself standing in the shower. They were with me, in my mind.

Soon after, the stream of experience caught up with me again, and this time, it was more intense than ever. The shower water became freezing cold, and I tried to accept it, but it was too much for me to handle. I shut off the water, and stood there for a while, in complete discomfort, being tortured by the extremes of physical sensation. I called out 'Is this all there is? Is this what being real is?' I felt that the response was 'Yes', and I began to feel miserable. I wanted so badly to find home; to find peace, to be back in the room with the liberated spirits of my friends, to be whole, to be complete, to desire no more. I remember yelling, crying, wallowing. I was at the end of the universe. Nobody was going to help me. I was everything; all of the light and matter of the universe, I was god, and it was lonely.

I wanted so badly to have another to comfort me and to communicate with me. I wanted to create another god to be my companion. I realized that I had been thinking all of this and saying all of this while standing in the exact same spot, motionless. My lips had not moved, my eyes had for the most part, been shut. I just wanted out. I realized that the only thing holding this universe together was opposites. Negative/positive, male/female, joy/pain, love/fear. And I was alone because I was all of this, put together and embodied as god, but I had no opposite. I had no other to compare myself to or to balance myself with.

Thoughts of suicide entered my mind. Did the universe need to exist? If I was everything, and everyone, was it all up to me? Was I the combined spirit of all there was, and could I choose to end the universe? I dwelled in lonliness for a while, still trying to believe that there was some other in the universe to make me whole. I started to cry, and then I heard a voice. It was a familiar voice; a girl named Crystal was standing outside the bathroom door, calling to me, asking me if I was alright. The world I was in began to crumble, because there was another. I said 'Yes, I'm alright', and stepped out of the shower, which was still glowing with light, and began to put my clothes back on. I wasn't moving very fast, and she asked me a few more times if I needed help and if I was okay.

Eventually, I was able to open the door and walk out into the kitchen, where Crystal, my brother, and a couple other friends were happy to see me. I felt at peace, comfortable with who I was and what was happening. For a while, I was amazed that I was back in this body; that I was alive and human. They tried to relate with me of experiences they'd had on mushrooms, but I have a feeling that none of them had ever experienced something like I had. It's January the first, two-thousand-and-three, and now I'm left with a mild headache and a feeling that something profound has come into my life experience. I think that I really might have been talking with spirits or souls or whatever. It was beautiful. I will never forget last night, whether it was real or imaginary, or if there's a difference between the two, at all.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 20074
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 31, 2007	Views: 14,388
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Mushrooms (39) : Hangover / Days After (46), Mystical Experiences (9), Small Group (2-9) (17)