DOSE:	2.5 g	oral	Mushrooms	(dried)
	joints/cigs	smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

What follows is by far my greatest experience with mushrooms to date. Enjoy

Pre-Trip Run Down

Two nights ago I saw my friend LD at a party, and he took me aside to ask me if I'd like to eat some mushrooms with him the next day. This was a very pleasant surprise, and I hadn't anything important to do the next day so of course I gladly accepted the offer. I was also surprised, that of all people, he would ask me. We've been friends for years but our respective paths have forked in such a way that we rarely see each other anymore.

The plan was to wake up relatively early the next day and drive up to a small town where his family had lots of hilly, wooded property which we could explore on mushrooms.

We got up there around 12:45pm and spent some time talking to whoever owned the land which we would soon be squatting upon. I don't remember her name, or her relation. Regardless, our meeting was made somewhat awkward by the fact that LD's brother and a couple of his friends were already tripping mushrooms on her property.

See, there was a Wigwam of sorts that had been crafted just a short ways up a hill in the woods, overlooking the small field which surrounded the house. From the house we could see the younger breed of trippers running around in the trees and occasionally poking a head out of the woods. It seemed obvious to me, regardless of prior knowledge, that drugs were involved. Fortunately, for now, the owner of the property believed there was a bit of pot-smoking involved and didn't mind letting us be. Additionally, she was just about to leave the house for a few hours.

So LD and I walked up the hill to the Wigwam and happened to catch a snake in the grass on the way up which we thought would be fun to show them. The young trippers were all having an obviously great time. Not one of them could close their mouths because the perma-grin was so pervasive. They all raved about the mushrooms as they walked around playing with sticks and closely examining rocks and puffball mushrooms.

A Walk in the Woods

We were ready to trip as well, so LD and I left on a walk, following an electric fence line for a ways and then taking a trail deeper into the woods. We found a spot in a very nice section of pine forest, chose a log to sit on, and LD took out the mushrooms.

I should mention that these mushrooms were not like any other mushrooms I've seen. Or, perhaps I should say that *each* of these mushrooms resembled the one or two best mushrooms I've ever seen. Having seen a lot of mushrooms in my days, I was really blown away by the sight of these beauties. Each one had a thick stem which, when broken, revealed a totally blue inside. None of the viels were broken on the caps. If there was a magazine like High Times, but for magic mushrooms, every one of these mushrooms could have been a centerfold.

So we ate them straight up, with some seltzer water to chase them down. The taste was foul, and they turned slimy in my mouth as I choked them down. This was to be expected It took about five minutes to eat my five mushrooms (which I estimate was between 2.5 and 3 grams), and another five minutes for LD to roll up a spliff (tobacco + pot) right afterwards.

And by the time the spliff was rolled, I was nearly overwhelmed.

'LD, it's only been like ten minutes since we ate those mushrooms, right?'
'Yeah, ten minutes, why?'
'Dude the ground is moving already and I'm really buzzed!'

Whoa. This was too fast! I was feeling lightheaded and my depth perception was fucked. I couldn't tell which trees were close and which trees were far away! I'd never had mushrooms kick in nearly this fast! How hard would I be tripping in two hours??! LD kept talking but all I could do was stare at the ground and attempt to collect myself. Slow inhale... slow exhale... slow inhale... slow exhale. I looked up again. Shit! The buzz I was feeling was far from mellow or comfortable. It felt like a million burning needles.

A rare sight indeed; I turned down the spliff which was being handed to me.

The Fear was creeping in. Let me tell you, friends, there are few people who would consider me an inexperienced tripper. I'm no stranger to The Fear but these days I'm quite confident in my ability to deal with the worst of mindfucks, ride out the most distressing of physical experiences, and laugh in the false face of The Fear.

But, even though I try to ignore this fact mid-trip, mushrooms have a way of scaring the shit out of me. On the car ride up I'd discussed with LD how I felt I could easily handle a strong LSD, mescaline, DXM, etc. trip while I felt even a small dose of mushrooms could potentially fuck with me in a big way.

Okay, I need to stop thinking about this.

'Let's walk.'

I stood up and made my way through the maze of trees which stood between myself and the trail. By this time my visuals had intensified to the point where the entire earth was slithering and the tree trunks looked like strange twisting fingers forcing their way out of the neverending pattern of pine needles.

We took a left and followed the trail until we came to a fork in the trail. One way kept going straight, and the other way went up a hill. Immediately I started up the hill and LD followed. Soon we came to another fork.

'I should tell you right now, LD, I have a strong impulse to climb and keep moving. Last time I took mushrooms outside I ended up walking down a railroad track for five hours. I think it's an instinct or something.'
'Well what about the climbing?'
'I like to climb, I guess.'
'Trying to reach the top of Mt. Zion?'
'This might as well be Mt. Zion.'

As we stood in the middle of the trail discussing this, we both turned around at 90 degree angles, fascinated by the fact that each direction presented us with totally different scenery. By this point I was no longer on the verge of freaking out. Everything was still extremely intense, and I undoubtedly still had a lot of coming up to do on the mushrooms, but the initial shock of going from sober to a strong ++ in ten minutes, and then to a medium +++ just a few minutes later, had settled.

At some point we lost the trail on my unending quest to veer both left and uphill. That was just fine though, we didn't need a trail. I stopped at a tree because I noticed that a slug was climbing it very slowly. I encouraged it to hasten its climb, and finally poked it with my finger to see if it would go faster. Instead it squished itself and its skin got all wet and slimy. We stood there pondering the nature of this defense mechanism, and decided that it served to gross out any potential predators.

We came to a old stone wall which ran perpendicular to the hillside. LD decided he'd have to intervene and suggested we follow the stone wall down the hill. The hill became rather steep and we weaved in and out of the brush working our way down as if we were tackling a steep downhill ski trail.

At this point LD said, 'I like the way you walk with the woods.'
'How do you mean?'
'Well, some people would just crash through the brush or push plants out of the way and step on others. You don't walk through the woods, you walk with them.'
I took this as a great compliment! 'Thank you! To walk with the woods you must constantly change direction, in a fluid motion.'
'It's actually much easier that way.'

I should note, despite my excellent memory of many of the conversations held between myself and LD, that these conversations were very difficult to hold. I was on a ten-second delay, it seemed. There were too many layers of thought, consideration, and fact-checking between the time I heard LD speak and the time I could formulate a response. For this reason, at this point in the trip, I was starting little conversation of my own.

Soon we came to a large mud puddle, though it took us quite a while to identify the nature of this anamoly. It seemed like the forest had died in this spot and we both got a strange feeling. LD said, 'If I sat down here I think I would start tripping very hard. We should walk back to the Wigwam.'

Though I preferred the woods, I agreed that we probably should go back and check on the other trippers.

As we walked away from the mud puddle I discussed my problem following conversation and the ten-second delay.

LD said, 'No, I don't think so.'
'Yeah, its like there way too many layers of thought or something.'
'Are you sure?'
'Well, yeah, its hard to talk.'
'You seem to be doing allright.'
'Well, no, you see... wait a minute... huh. I guess its not a problem at all!'

It was then that LD decided I was simply thinking too much and needed to go with the flow. I wasn't sure I needed a psycho-evaluation right then but it seemed he was right at least in this case. I did disagree, however, that this assessment could be applied to my normal, sober life.

Taken by The Earth

With some difficulty, we made it back through the electric fence and stumbled towards the Wigwam. We both knew it was getting towards that critical time where we needed to sit down. Or something. Whatever it was, the grip on reality that we normally enjoy was slipping.

We arrived at the Wigwam to find the younger trippers still walking around barefoot, playing with sticks, and laughing about things which were 'natural' and 'unnatural'. Immediately I sat down against the side of the Wigwam and closed my eyes. I was blinded by color! No, I have to keep my eyes open, that is too intense. So I sat there staring forward, unable to pay any attention to everything that was going on around me.

And then I just was. There was nothing else. And by 'I', I don't mean the normal sense of 'I'. For perhaps an hour I sat there, experiencing whatever there was to experience, as I slipped away from myself. At times I was nervous and tried to hang on. At other times there wasn't enough of *me* left to try to hang on to. This whole period is very fuzzy for me, because I didn't realize what was going on as it happened. I sunk into the ground and became part of The Earth. Our experience was now one. There was no time. There was no logic. There was no seperate 'me'.

And then I noticed that I had legs. Whoa. Are they supposed to be like that? Yeah, I guess that's normal. Hands! Strange.

I realized I'd been sitting in this one spot for quite a while and my butt was rather sore because I'd chosen an awkward position. I also realized that I was really quite tired of sitting in this spot, and wanted to head back to the woods. It took me what must have been a half hour to get LD to join me for another walk. It wasn't that he disagreed, it was that he was too confused to get his shit together and go. I wasn't confused though. I knew one thing, and that was that I wanted to get away from the Wigwam and back to the woods, urgently.

I am Reborn, by way of the Slug

Finally we got going. I made my way quickly along the electric fence line, stumbling over my own feet, and finally made it back into the woods. This time we took a different direction which led us into a dark, wet section of forest.

We trudged through this swampy mosquito hive for what seemed like quite a while. Several times we were convinced we'd gone in circles because the trail seemed to repeat itself. I still had no concept of time and thought it was dark out [though it was actually no later than 4pm]. We were on autopilot, simply walking in hopes that we'd get *somewhere*.

Finally I said, 'Let's go up and left.'

We broke out of the trail and scrambled up the hillside to our left. The hillside was muddy, and we kept slipping backwards. It got steeper, and we grabbed onto trees to pull ourselves up the hill. We kept going up this hill for what seemed like an eternity, but slowly the forest was becoming more welcoming. The mudslide gave way to a bright, open, pine forest.

'It's still daytime!'

We found a beautiful spot to rest, with a couple of nice rocks to sit on. It was then that I began spewing snot out of my nose and mouth. I had no idea my body could make mucus at 1/10th of the rate it was right then. And then, I realized who I was, and it was halarious.

*hack!* *snort!* *spew!*
'Hahahahahaha!!! I'm so gross! Hahahahaha!'

I ran around the woods spewing snot and cracking up to the extent that I could barely keep my balance at the same time. My right leg fell asleep so it whacked it against a tree, only to realize the tree was dead. I knocked it down. 'It was a tree. Then it was dead. Now its a stick! Hahahah!'

LD was cracking up to an equal extent. What a great spot! Ten minutes earlier I was a zombie, climbing a muddy hill in the cold, dark, night. Now it was daytime, I remembered who I was, and I was glad to be me dispite the fact that I was a disgusting, snot spewing creature.

LD rolled up a spliff and smoked it by himself. I was in too great of a mindstate to risk changing it. For quite a while we stayed in this spot, as I remembered who I was and had a great time laughing about it. No longer was I having trouble speaking. I was talking and laughing without even the slightest break. LD seemed concerned for me when I pulled out my wallet and looked at my drivers license for a laugh. But his concern was misdirected. What did he expect, I would be dissapointed, hoping I was actually a rock star or a millionaire?! Indeed, everything was halarious. I was still mostly insane, but it was great.

Eventually we left that spot and LD suggested we go right. We found another spot, but soon it got cold and the mosquitos tracked us down. We came across a couple Beech trees which had some kind of disease, causing the bark to decay in a strange way. LD said that Beech Trees only had 200 to 300 years left, because, just like the Elm Tree, they were on their way to extinction. We stood there and stared at the trees, and LD got sad thinking about it. He then warned that I shouldn't dwell on the thought, even though I wasn't having any problems dealing with it. However, I wasn't in the mood to try and reverse his psycho-analysis. I did think it was strange that he thought I was on the verge of a mental break down when I thought it was obvious I was having the best time ever.

So I took off, running through the woods.

'I think I travel best at speed!', I yelled back as I darted through the trees with a new-found agility.
'Where are you going?!' he yelled back.
'I'm going to find a spot! It's warm, sunny, and this way!'

Of course I was running left and up as fast as I could.

And then I found the spot. It was right there, as I had imagined. The sun shone through the trees, at the edge of a cliff with a beautiful view overlooking a gully, as if God himself had intended us to arrive there.

LD caught up to me and was amazed at the excellent spot I had found. We sat down, smoked a couple spliffs (I was finally ready to smoke, and enjoyed it thoroughly), and basked in the sunlight.

After a while we both started peeling bark off sticks with other sticks. It was a halarious concept, and we were both driven to keep doing it. For perhaps thirty minutes we peeled bark off sticks with other sticks.

Then we took our barkless sticks and hit them against other sticks. Music! Within seconds we'd developed a complex and organic rhythm. Different sticks made different notes, and hitting sticks against pine needles sounded like a cymbal. Excellent

The next hour or so was spent basking in the sun, and I felt an overwhelming feeling of peace and tranquility. Looking up at the canopy and the clouds above was an experience in itself. By this time I had few visuals, but I felt like I was reborn. And what a beautiful place to be reborn!

Reflection

Around 7:00pm we decided to walk back down the hill and head towards the Wigwam again. We both ran down the hill hitting sticks with other sticks, leaping down ledges, and walking carefully between the plants. How lucky we are to be human beings.

When we finally arrived at the Wigwam, it was empty. LD decided he was sober enough to drive, so we rode home. On the way out we met the woman who owned the property and it seemed obvious that she had caught on to our activities and she wans't too happy about it. Haha, well that's just too bad I guess because I don't know you and I probably won't see you ever again! When we got home we hit up the Wendy's drive thru, because we hadn't eaten anything besides an early morning bagel and five mushrooms the entire day. Delicious!

We parted ways, because LD was heading to Europe for the next month or so. With utmost earnesty, we thanked each other for sharing a remarkable experience.

I then joined my girlfriend and some other friends for a fireworks show. What an awesome day.

Eat your mushrooms outside folks. :)

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 46849
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 20, 2005	Views: 21,157
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