DOSE:

2.5 g

oral

Mushrooms - P. cubensis

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

I have read experience reports of mushroom trips for over a year now. Always interested but never having the time and space needed, I recently found myself in a situation away from the normal, in a place where I wouldn't be bothered but where my friends were close by.

There were three of us involved, all with doses around 2/3 of an eighth. We each made PB&J sandwiches (highly recommended to cover taste, esp. with chunky peanut butter) and ate them at 8:15 PM. What follows is my attempting to recreate the order of the experience a day after the fact.
Bear in mind in reading this report that we all had the same dose of the same mushroom, and are all similar body weights. However, Z is an experienced psychonaut, and C had tripped a few times before. This was my first trip.
___________________________________
8:15- Ate PB&J&M sandwich.
8:35- Feeling peculiar body rush. Every now and then, I'll be sitting there, and suddenly new awareness will kick in, like three clicks, as when tumblers in a lock open. But this lock has a lot of tumblers to be opened yet.
8:50- Looking at the ceiling, which is highly textured. Patterns begin to emerge at this point, if I stare long enough the patterns begin to form images. We are all feeling fairly giggly at this part of the trip. The music in the background (Chick Corea) has taken on totally new dimension. I feel a connection to him I've never had before.
9:10- The giggly phase of the trip is just about over, and the patterns take on the form of images much more readily. The clock seems to move barely at all, and time dilation is intense even this early in. Looks like we're in for a hell of a trip.

9:30- Must lie down, body rush and images becoming very intense. No colors, though. I had always read about people seeing colors associated with the patterns and sounds.
9:45- Lying on my bed staring up at the textured ceiling. I'm motionless, but you'd best believe the ceiling is not. The shapes are so vivid. I can't speak at this point, I find. My friends are talking to me, asking if I need anything, but I can't figure out how to respond to them. My friend Z tells people to lay off, as he understands what's going on being an experienced tripper.
(Around this point, time lost all meaning. The times listed are my approximation based on what people told me happened. It felt like it could have been a full year, easily.)

9:50- The ceiling is in complete turmoil now. Becoming tough to look at it. When I close my eyes, I don't really have closed-eye visuals, but I get a feeling of shapes. No colors though. Strange.
9:55- Z puts Kind of Blue on the stereo, sensing that I'm having a tough time. Part of the way through the second track (real time : probably eight minutes, trip-time : couple hours), I notice I'm not breathing. Holy shit, I'm dead. But I'm still conscious ; I still have a sense of self at this point. I try to move, and I'm told that my arm would hit the wall every now and again, but for the most part I'm stuck motionless.
10:05- I'm a musician, but I can no longer relate to music. Who am I? Am I? My sense of who I am begins to decay, very rapidly. I am nothing ; I am a particle. I am a soul?

10:10- Total ego death. I'd heard people talk about thinking they were dead, but this isn't just death. My concept of who I am has been scattered as ashes are scattered. I try to move my fingers to no avail.
10:15- I see my body, but it's just a body. It's not me, but then again, neither am I. At this point, the body gets up and walks into the bathroom. I go with it.
10:20- The body vomits. I try to grasp for some sense of what I am, but it's gone, I can't find it, where is it? Was it every anywhere? I am no longer anything. This must really be death. All is over. Somehow, the body sheds its clothes and gets in the shower. Feebly, I search for some link to what I am. This stage of total ego death and loss of self lasted for apparently about two hours. It was terrible, terrible. Hellish. To be nothing is ... I give in to my fate, seeing now that I may not make it back after all.

12:00- Slowly, slowly, I am. So slowly. Pieces of life come to me. Experiences, people. From this total emptiness, I begin to reconstruct my very self, from the core outwards. Memories of things fade back in, but so slowly, like the way a tiny stream goes around a huge rock.
12:30- I have been sitting in the shower for quite a while. Thankfully I must have turned the water off at some point. More of who I determine myself to be comes to me. I have some understanding of what's going on now. But it isn't done yet. So much is still missing, but I feel that it is missing, and that it will come when it is ready. Resigned, I wait, and think, and remember.

1:00- Rebirth. Resurrection. Transfiguration. All is new now. It is as though I am seeing everything in a new way, like for the first time. I'd heard people talk about being born again, but always assumed it was bullshit. But this is something totally new. I really am reborn.
1:15- I come out of the bathroom. There are eight or nine people in the kitchen area, hanging out. Among them are three experienced trippers. I go into my room and sit on my bed. My friend D, who wasn't tripping that night, comes in and talks to me. He had an experience like mine once, and I talk to him about what happens. He is amazed, given my relatively low dosage and that it's my first trip, at how intense and life-changing of an experience I have gone through. He leaves me to sort it out.

1:30- At this point, the trip has ended. The influence of the drug is over. I sit on my bed and begin to sort out what I experienced. Different friends of mine come in to talk to me, but I don't tell them too much just yet. Maybe later.
1:40- My good friend C comes in now. We talk about what happened. He is very happy for me. He sees how deeply this will change things.
2:00- We go get some pizza downstairs. Afterwards, I go to sleep for the night.
___________________________________


Some might call this a bad trip, but I'd call it a hard trip. Facing the subconscious can be a very very very very frightening thing. You can deny things in real life, but not under mushrooms. The entirety of your subconscious comes out, be it beauty or the pits of Gehenna. But you must face it, or it will dominate you. I had a tough time, but I came through it.

The next day, everything seems fresh. Breathing feels fantastic, remembering when I wasn't breathing. I go to play with my group (8-piece jazz combo), and the music makes so much more sense now. I have been having serious doubts about my chosen path, and perhaps that is part of what the trip was about. I resolve to do whatever it is that is needed for my path to be realized, fully. I don't want to give to much detail to keep my identity unclear.

What an intense experience. I think you need to be truly, fully ready to see what it is that your head has to show you under this drug. But the amount that it will teach is inexpressible in words.
Peace to all, and have a safe trip.
-f

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 9942
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 18, 2003	Views: 172,862
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : First Times (2), Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)