DOSE:

5.0 g

oral

Mushrooms

(plant material)

At about 7:30 P.M., I walked a short distance with my family to a friend's apartment, where I ingested about 5 grams of powdered mushrooms in orange juice. After I choked down as much of the mushrooms as I could (About 1/4 of a gram remained- I was certain that if I tried to finish the remaining dose I would vomit), I returned to my apartment, leaving my family at our friend's apartment. I had eaten only half of a sandwich that day, and I anticipated that the effects would set in relatively quickly.

How right I was. Within fifteen minutes, the effects of the mushrooms were obvious. I laid down, the light pulsing, and found myself uncontrollably swept away into a trance, after which point I started writing (rather illegibly, I might add) in my notebook. I was not entirely sure what I was actually writing, and I don't exactly remember writing any of it, but I knew at the time that it was extremely important. The following is an exerpt from my automatic scribbles

'Am I alone? / We are never alone ... Dolphin brains / The grey matter /this is the fabric of our existance / There is only one thought / I have already written these things many times / All of this is a spark /Everything Is / Everything Becomes'

I found the 'Everything Becomes' remark to be very striking, and I giggled at the comment for quite a while..

This is the part of the trip where my memory starts to get a little fuzzy.

I remember getting a shower, grinning and laughing like a 4-year old. I was saying things like 'I can do whatever I want, if I don't like it, I can change it..' over and over again. Sometimes, I couldn't tell if my eyes were opened or closed, the visual hallucinations being very intense (The lights were even turned on).. I turned off the water, but remained in the shower for an undetermined amount of time. I remained naked, and found my way out to the living room, where I laid down on the couch.

I laid perfectly flat on the couch, absolutely still. I felt as if I was nothing, the Universe was nothing, and all I had to do was simply Be. I spent a great deal of time Being.

I emerged from the trance, unsure of who I was, where I was, what was going on, or why I felt the way I did. I had a number of disturbing thoughts, such as 'I must be dead- I've always known it would happen to me, here it is..' I saw my 3-month old daughter, and heard a voice telling me that I had, in a way, become her, and that I might as well be dead because I had fulfilled my purpose on this planet. Still yet another voice was telling me that I was not actually dead, but was just now experiencing life for the first time. Another voice told me that the Universe had just came to an explosive and violent end and that I was sitting in the twisted wreckage, and another voice told me that I was entirely responsible for its destruction. Confused and frightened, I threw on some pants and a sweater and ran as fast as I could to get my family.

I arrived at my friend's apartment in a matter of seconds, and found that there were a couple of our other friends over there as well. I don't remember much from being over there, except that I occasionally would forget that I was at his apartment, and that I was actually at my apartment instead (The layouts of our apartments are nearly identical).. I almost walked into his roommate's room a couple times, thinking that it was actually MY room (they are in the same relative location). Later on that night, my wife would inform me that I smoked some cannabis while I was over there and wrapped myself up in a blanket, but I do not have any recollection of these events.. I was sure that I had taken off my clothes while I was over there, too, but my wife assures me I did not. I was also informed, later on, that there were two people over there smoking Salvia earlier that night, and now I wonder if that could possibly account for some of the disassociative quality of my trip.

We returned home, and I was still unsure as to the 'who, what, when, where, why, and how' of the situation. My wife asked me some questions, but I wasn't entirely sure what she was saying, and kind of just went 'uhhhhh... uh huh..' and nodded my head. It was then that I remembered that I had written some things in my notebook, so I grabbed it, hoping that it would help jog my memory. I found that I was unable to read, and was becoming more and more certain that I was clinically braindead. I did not remember taking the mushrooms, and thought that I felt the way I did because I had recently quit smoking tobacco.

I slowly phased back into 'normal' reality, but I would not be completely rematerialized until I woke up from a good nights sleep. I feel that I missed an important part of the trip (the 'reconstruction' phase), and next time I would like to have another person around to help keep me from getting too lost. When I went into the trip initially, I had a very focused mind, I was certain of that- but by the end I felt that my consciousness had been sent through an atomic coffee grinder. Confusion reigned, and I was unable to hold my pieces together. I can only imagine what it must have been like for my friends to see me in that state of mind, since I do not really remember anything I said to them..

If I had to summarize this trip into two words, they would be 'confusion' and 'strange'. But, despite the harsh descriptions I have provided, it was not a trip that I would group into the 'bad' category. I feel that even though I was unsure as to who I was or what the hell was happening to me for a good chunk of the trip, I learned a lot from this experience and would jump at the opportunity to try it again, albeit I probably need a month or two for the lessons learned to completely sink in.

Exp Year: 1998	ExpID: 2085
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 24, 2000	Views: 5,778
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Mushrooms (39) : General (1), Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)