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There and Back Again
Mushrooms
Citation:   Long Days. "There and Back Again: An Experience with Mushrooms (exp29331)". Erowid.org. Apr 4, 2006. erowid.org/exp/29331

 
DOSE:
1.5 g oral Mushrooms (edible / food)
BODY WEIGHT: 110 lb
I consider myself pretty inexperienced with the drug scene. I started smoking pot about a year before I had my first experience with anything else. My friends, all starting the journey down the road of hallucinogens, had tried mushrooms and told me that I should try them too. My first mushroom experience is still too much for me to even comprehend, much less put into words. Another story for another time.

After a couple of months of a dry spell, one of our (we being myself and my two roommates, T and P) friends made mention that a friend of his brothers had recently made a batch of mushroom chocolates and we could get first crack at them, assuming we wanted to. Why he added that qualifier, I don't even know, he knew that we would. So, after our final exam, we each ate a single wonderful chocolate and sat impatiently, waiting for the ride to start. I should probably note that none of us had had much to eat that day, we are all poor college students, but we each made sure we had at least something in our respective stomachs (we had a history of getting sick on mushrooms and, while puking is awful, dry heaving is worse).

After sitting in the living room of our apartment for about 20 minutes, I started feeling the familiar cool wave over my body, almost like an egg had cracked over my head and was spreading evenly and slowly down my body, relaxing me and letting me know it was about to begin. I looked around a lot, trying to see if my companions were feeling the same way I was. As I was looking around, I noticed a halo of light around everything, everything being more luminous and interesting that it had previously been. My eyes drifted to the fake wood grain on our entertainment center, which was dancing, of sorts, to the music that was playing on the stereo (I can't remember what we had going, only that it had a great beat) More like swaying that turned into bouncing. T then suggested we all go into the other room to look at these pictures he had on his computer that, in his experience with shrooms, were neat and did fun things.

So we went into the other room and sat around, watching the pictures move and fluxuate in color and pattern (it was kind of like watching Milkdrop - a visualization on Winamp - without actually having it on.) We played some video games, stared at the carpet and the tiling in the kitchen, the usual stuff ofr a good mushroom trip.

about two hours into it, T and P expressed that they were starting to come down, the visuals fading into the general sense of well-being and reentry into the world of reality. I, on the other hand, was still tripping hard, harder than I was comfortable with. I had been sitting on the couch when I started feeling really nauseous. I was trying like mad to keep myself from just drifting off inside of my head, thinking about things that could make this perfect experience go awry. As I was struggling to hold onto reality, I saw a big black cloud of cold and nothingness approaching me, blocking out everything I could see. I didn't know what to do, it was starting to really scare me. But I knew enough about tripping that I still had a certain amount of control, as long as I kept myself from losing it to begin with. As I was then unable to stand up, I crawled over to the other side of the room to hold onto my love, T, who I thought could help pull me back from this awful place, help me fight the negativity (T is my soulmate and, in my singular previous trip, I saw lots of *trippy* things, including a halo around him and me, separating us from the rest of the world). I had it firmly in my mind that he, the member of my duprass (cat's cradle reference, for those of you who don't get it, you should read it, excellent book) whose soul was conjoined with my own could help me fight it. So I sat with him, trying not to freak out and he just held me. I'm sure he was starting to get worried because I wasn't/couldn't vocalize what was going on... I guess as far as he knew, I was fine one moment and the next I was crawling over to him and sobbing, but trying not to. Everytime I closed my eyes, I saw alligators with swirley eyes chomping at me, forcing me to keep my eyes open and focused on fighting the impending awful. But, the longer I was with T, with him holding me tight and rubbing my back, whispering 'it's going to be alright' over and over in my ear, I watched as, from my mind, a white wisp emanated and fought away the darkness. I managed to stop crying and focus, finally able to stand and vocalize what had just happened. We shifted the music (to Shpongle, the band that fits every single situation, no matter what, and my godsend) and I began to relax in the wondrous music of Dorset Perception.

From there, everything was fine, the cloud never reappeared. I had a normal comedown and ended the trip with a slight case of nausea, probably from all the cigarettes I had smoked in the 4 hour trip (I am not a smoker but I chainsmoke when I'm fucked up). And so that's about it in regards to the shroom trip. I think I would definitely do it again and I hope to get the chance to experiment with other halluniogens. I'm about a day away from the trip and I still have so many thoughts about it that I haven't sorted through yet.

Mushrooms are great. But, if I learned anything from this past trip, it's that it's important to always have people with you (I don't know what I would have done if T hadn't been there to help bring me back) and that [your] mind is much stronger than sometimes you think. That is, by no means, an endorsement to do more that you should just because you think your mind will be able to fight it - for all I know, that's not always the case. But I think that, if you find yourself at a place you don't want to be, it's always worth a shot to try to fight it, mentally. It worked for me.

Be safe, kids.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 29331
Gender: Female 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 4, 2006Views: 4,768
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Mushrooms (39) : Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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