DOSE:

3.5 g

oral

Amanitas - A. muscaria

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

I'd like to share my first experience with the fly-agaric mushroom. I'm a self-declared psychonaut, and have experience with weed (duh), shrooms, salvia, x, hawaain baby woodrose seeds, and some prescription meds...thus I have a little experience with 'drugs'. I spend a lot of time on the computer, and I have a tendency to camp at erowid and read about every drug that exists. Anyways, I stumbled upon the amanitas there, but my initial interest was turned away by the mention of nausea. After reading quite a few reports, I found that weed was noted by one person as a near-cure for the nausea caused by the mushrooms. So I figured what the fuck and decided to order some.

Anyways, I ordered WA state dried caps (I read caps cause less nausea...no hard evidence, though), for about $35 for a 1/2 oz. My friends and I had planned all of this in advance, and had decided ahead of time to start the dose low and fast for 1 meal (both were suggested quite often with regard to this mushroom). We each took about 3.5 grams, or 1/8 of an oz. We simply chewed them up and washed them down with water. To be honest, I have never had trouble eating any type of shrooms, so I'm probably a bad person to ask with regards to how these taste. Suffice to say, no one present had trouble getting them down...we agreed they tasted a little like chicken flavored rice cakes. Anyway, twenty minutes passed with little or no noted effects. After that, I started to slightly notice the shrooms' presence within my stomach. By this I mean that when I walked around, my stomach felt more full then it should have been. I read that dried amanitas will puff up like gelatin when immersed in water, so perhaps that's what happened in my stomach. The feeling wasn't unpleasant, but noticeable.

From the 30 - 40 minute mark, I noticed that time seemed to slow down, and I started to note that my hands were a little sweaty. These effects continued for a while, then I took a couple of bong hits to prevent the nausea that I was dreading. At the 40 minute mark, I barfed. To be honest, I didn't feel nauseus, but I noted sweatiness in my hands, and knowing that was one of the first effects, began to 'expect' the nausea. One thing led to another, and I sorta decided to barf instead of dreading the chance of it happening for the next hour or so - thus, I wouldn't say I *had* to throw up, because my stomach didn't hurt or anything. After I barfed, I felt cleansed. I drank some water, and began to calm down, a little shaken up by the sweating and barfing. Things started to be noticable here.

After the barfing, at about the 1 hour mark, more physical effects were noted. The nausea was gone, and I felt fine, but my body temperature was fucked up. I would sweat because I was hot, then get cold because of air blowing over my sweat, and back and forth. I also felt generally jittery, had the urge to go outside and walk around - also, my eyes wouldn't focus properly. I was moderately high (from some smoking a little earlier, and the few bongs hits), and that normally causes a little bluriness in my vision, but I could feel my eyes resisting to focusing on things more than 8 feet or so away. If I squinted, I was fine, but it was like my eyes were on break for the meantime. This part of the trip (hour 1-2) wasn't unpleasant, but time was passing very very slow. This wasn't a bad feeling, but the physical effects combined to make a *somewhat* annoying situation, but this is partly because I'm always paranoid about new drugs and their effects.

We decided to leave my friend's place (dumb, I know...you're not ever supposed to drive anywhere with new drugs), but it was after I pummeled friend 1 and 2 with questions regarding their abilities to drive. Their responses were basically 'i'm fine, calm down you weenie' (i'm the one who will live the longest out of the four of us, no doubt), so we decided to hit the road. The 30 minute drive seemed to take a really long time, and at this point we had taken the shrooms about 2 hours ago, but it seemed like much much longer (significant distortion of time, overall!). On the ride home, the friend I was riding with said he was feeling different, and that he was having to concentrate on driving, but that he was fine overall. I bugged him about it a little, but he convinced me he was okay, and I chilled and agreed we'd be cool.

During the ride, I noticed that my eyes were really having trouble focusing. I wear glasses, and it was if long-range vision (i.e. even street signs and speed limits) was being interpreted by my eyes as if I didn't have glasses. Inside the car, looking at the clock, I was fine - much further than that, and it was fuzzy. This general relaxation seemed to overtake me. I still noted sweat on my body, but the physical effects had diminished in general. It was if I'd popped a valium. I felt chilled out, but simultaneously 'up'. My mindset was logical and clear, but I felt a little like an observer in my own body. This observer perspective lent itself to a stimulant aura, as I felt like I was gliding just behind myself, almost like rolling without the emotional effects. Other than blurriness, there weren't visual hallucinations. At our dose, it was more like a mind trip than anything else. I felt like part of my brain was a-o.k., and perfectly logical and responding, and another part had thrown a plank across some psycho-stimulant-river and decided to walk back and forth over it, giving me a little bit of an observer perspective in my own mind. These effects seemed to strengthen slightly over time, as if I was paying more and more attention to that aforementioned mental river and its plank as time went on. The effects seemed to peak, and then I got tired shortly after, as if I could go to sleep right away if I wanted to, but it was up to me.

The effects trailed off pleasantly, making the rest of the trip good. Overall, my friends and I seemed to interact normally, but perhaps talked a little less. I felt decidedly introspective at times, and could definitely see how one could get lost in oneself and start to really mentally wander at higher doses. Overall, the trip was pretty light. I would do it again, given the right situation, concerning my experience with the nausea. I'd say make sure your stomach is empty when you eat these, that way if you do throw up it won't take long. None of my other friends threw up, one got tired and went to bed at about hour 2, but the other ones ultimately said they were 'definitely more than high', but were reluctant to say they fully tripped without visual hallucinations. Thus, we agreed it was a mind trip.

All in all, I would say be careful with this mushroom, as the simultaneous clarity and uppy mind trip quality of it could lead to powerfully introspective experiences at higher doses. To me, this fully-logical yet trippy-nature is what could make a heavy amanita trip not totally recreational. :) I can see why people revere this mushroom and have for 3500 years...it's truly unique!

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 5324
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 13, 2002	Views: 67,576
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Amanitas - A. muscaria (70) : General (1), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)