On April 20th, 2009, I ate a quarter of hallucinogenic mushrooms. It was a relatively spur of the moment decision. I learned that shrooms were around the day before, purchased them at 11:30 AM on the 20th, and ate them at 1:00 PM the same day. I knew it was going to be strong, but I was not prepared for it to be as strong as it was. After sitting through one of the longest physics classes of my life, I made my way to the nearest public restroom and proceeded to eat the shrooms. It was a very good batch; there were quite a few caps that head to open, which is indicative of a higher ratio of psilocin / psilocybin to inactive plant matter. Once I ate the shrooms I sat on the quad for a while reading Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans and waiting for them to kick in. After about half an hour and left the quad for the portion of the campus where my friends were. In another half an hour the trip was starting, and I smoked a blunt with some friends in the woods. I was already tripping hard, yet I had no idea what I was in store for. I didn’t say much while we smoked the blunt (psychedelics often make me self-conscious and even quieter than usual). Some people have a talent for verbalizing their experience. I don’t know how they do it; I find the visuals extremely difficult to articulate because they are so novel. I’m not sure if the words to describe them even exist yet, and I am not ready to make them up. While sitting in the woods I would become absorbed in whatever I was looking at. It is a beautiful area, especially now that Spring has arrived. Tons of lush foliage, a serene little glade in the midst of a large research university. Every time I turned my head it was as if there was another world to explore, and I loved it. Each sight was a gift, and I would think to myself, “Oh hey, I forgot about that part!” It was a great feeling. So the blunt was finished and it was time to leave the woods. I went back to my room—probably a crucial decision that lead to my trip taking a turn for the worse. But I am getting ahead of myself. The walk back to my room was an adventure in and of itself, even though I could not have gone more than two hundred feet. I was worried about getting lost, and found myself repeating, “I’m going to my room.” Or some variation there of, over and over. This was to be a recurring theme of the day, as I would often speak aloud in an attempt to keep my composure. The building was a downer after the majesty of the outside world. The neutral colors and white cinderblock took on an oppressive, sterile tone. Everything was so bland that I began to question whether this was even really happening, or if I was still in the woods and merely imagining the whole thing. I could hear whispers. In fact, as I entered my floor, I thought I heard a girl say, “He doesn’t even live here.” I was worried that I had wandered into the wrong building. I had to reassure myself that my key was attached to my pants and therefore I must be in the right building. My room itself appeared even more threatening than the rest of the building had, and in my state it did not occur to me to leave the room. So I stayed there for two or three hours, not having a very good time. A number of bizarre thoughts occurred to me, including: Am I crazy? Retarded? Did I overdose and go to hell? But more on that later. Once I was in my room, all I could think was that I had to hear some music. So I listened to shpongle—not the best choice in retrospect if my desire was to keep myself grounded. So I lay in my bed as the album starts—with some ‘sounds of the rain forest’ or something, and really that was quite fitting. I remember laying in my bed and saying over and over, “I’m shpongled, that’s the only way to describe it, I ate a bunch of mushrooms and now I’m shpongled.” I lay there, thinking all sorts of odd (but still pleasant, at this point) thoughts. Not least of which was my love of knowledge. I wish I had taken some notes during the experience because it is extremely difficult to recall details and construct a coherent narrative. I just remember thinking about how much I love physics and science in general, and my train of thought would sometimes deviate and I would say, “Fuck science, I’ll just write!” This went on for a while, when my friend called me. Me and a bunch of people were supposed to go to his apartment to smoke a bunch of blunts. It was, after all, April 20th. I did not think I’d be able to leave my room, and I told him this. So they came up to my room. I rambled some crazy stuff for a while, I don’t remember most of it, but eventually they left and I stayed in my room. I had planned to go sleep. Not to flee from the trip, but because I was tired—probably another factor in the outcome of my experience. This is where the trip stopped just being intense and weird and became unpleasant. I began to feel physically ill—the mushrooms were the only thing I’d eaten all day. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and I became consumed by a feeling of dread. I was able to combat it at first—in fact, I didn’t even really have to try to fight it. I would think to myself, ‘I’m obviously still alive and therefore okay. I’m okay! I’m okay!’Unfortunately I was unable to keep it up, and eventually the influence of the mushrooms became overwhelming. There were moments when nothing around me seemed real. It came and went in phases; after the first one I gleefully exclaimed, “Everything is real again!” Yet the derealization occurred again and lasted longer. I made a thread on a message board stating my name and that I was going to sleep, and that I had eaten a quarter of mushrooms. A mod must have edited it because when I went back to check it my original post had been changed. This lead me to believe that I myself had already done it, from the future (or something…) and that I was now stuck in a tangential dimension while my life continued without me. I had a lot of strange thoughts about my being. I remember thinking about my parents, I don’t remember what I thought, but it was good. I had some strange thoughts about god, and about dying (such as, “Am I going to die? Would dying really be that bad?”). Of course, eventually concern for my own well being escalated as I became more paranoid. Once again I resorted to repeating myself ad nauseum: “It’s april 20ths, I ate a quarter of shrooms at 1, I ate 7 grams of shrooms, its 4/20, I ate a bunch of shrooms.” I had many strange thoughts about school, about life in general and why I bothered to do anything. Around five o clock I stopped peaking and was able to leave my room. The remainder of the trip was great. The intensity had gone down quite a few notches, but I was still tripping and it was still nice out. The most frustrating aspect of my experience was that it was simply too much for me at this point. As anyone who’s read this can probably tell, most of what I went through was so alien to me that I can scarcely recall it, let alone find a coherent way of understanding it in a psychological, personal, or spiritual context. Humbling is the perfect word, and in some respects I’m glad for that. I have not tripped that much, but I’ve done a lot of reading about psychedelics, drugs in general, and the human nervous system, so I felt adequately prepared. Clearly I was not, although I also think that if I had made some different decisions during the trip (not going to my room, or at least not staying in it for so long). Now I have a benchmark—after being underwhelmed by some trips with an 8th or a 16th, I bit off more than I could chew with the quarter. I am probably going to lay off psychedelics for a while, at least until the fall. But I am by no means forsaking them entirely. To be honest, I can’t wait to eat an 8th now that I have this experience under my belt. I realize that there is more to the experience than intensity, and that more intensity isn’t always desirable. Not only for purposes of having a good time, but for having an experience I can articulate. During the 3 – 4 hours where I was peaking I have very little chronology. It’s as if all of that time had been condensed into a single ‘lump’ of time, and there was no before or after. The mushroom gods have given me a lesson in humility. I had a lot of ‘chances’ to change the trip, and am ashamed to say that I spent a lot of time running away from…something, I’m not even sure what it was. There was no ego loss, but that may be at least partially due to an effort on my part. Of all the ‘mantras’ I had during the experience, “I am Mike” was definitely uttered the most. So, that’s it in a nutshell. I wish I had more to share. I’d like to flesh this out some more and submit it to Erowid, so if anything is unclear or you guys have any questions feel free to ask them. Sometimes it’s easier to answer a specific question than it is to try to relay the whole experience from scratch.
do not understand This changes -everything-. Enter confusion. Enter memory loss of the experience. Enter weakening of the mind. Enter paranoia and delusional thoughts. Enter a whole host of novel effects that you can really do without on mushrooms. Save the cannabis for the comedown if you must smoke, not for the comeup. Drop that shit man. Let your identity die. Evolve past it, see it for the heavy shell that it is. Take the opportunity given by the mushrooms to disrobe your last article of psychic clothing and experience life in the purest way. it's ok to be nothing, try it once, let your mind die. its fantastic. next trip
Once the caps start to open the mushrooms gain weight but still have the same amount of psilocin / psilocybin. To be honest I don't think the weed was responsible for my experience. The negative effects lasted longer than a weed high would have. As for the ego thing, I know that's not what I'm 'supposed' to do, but I don't believe in hard and fast rules when it comes to psychedelics, only guide lines. Thanks for the input though.
sounds like you had a bit of a transcendental experience.... I ate some Indian arrisa's (sp) once about a 8th they put me into this feeling where I could see my soul floating out of my body and everything became tingly like when your hyperventilating or not getting enough oxygen. I decided that this was death and at this point I no longer needed to take breaths. I was also with my girlfriend who at this point started freaking about the death thing decided she had to throw up. So as she is sitting at the toilet drifting in and out of consciousness with her finger down her throat I am watching over her to make sure she is alright. Every time she digs her finger down her throat I throw up for her... At this point I had no nausea it was her action of the finger down the throat that made me react she had no reaction what so ever and never threw up but told me multiple times she did. At this point we decided that we were one being just on a level of separation luckily my throwing up erased her nausea. At this time we started experiencing extreme time dilation complete with time stops and such. Nothing better than transcending reality!
Thats beautiful. But time stops man, those moments, can be EXTREMELY frightening if your not ready for them. I cant begin to explain, I love them. Always on the higher doses, there are those moments, where even movement outside of yourself seems to stop. Like the headlights of a car traveling down the road towards you just STOP. Your mind is racing but everything else is stationary. Then the headlights resume, without ever physicaly stopping.
I wouldn't discount the weed as being a possible cause. Everytime I've smoked right as I peak, the new headspace lasts until I start to come down of the peak, sometimes even to the end of the trip itself even. But yes, a 1/4 is out of this world and it definately had some scary moments first time I ate that much. But this will be a good learning experience for next time you trip.
just smoked a bowl and listening to shpongle again, it's pretty much nothing like i remember it, but im diggin it anyway :rofl:
