DOSE:	3.5 g	oral	Mushrooms
		smoked	Tobacco

BODY WEIGHT:

185 lb

Now I Know Why They Call It ''Magic'' Mushrooms

PROLOGUE

I am sitting in a car with a small bag full of shrooms. I am parked at a nearby low key chill park and I just picked the bag from a kind guy who I trust to be a reliable and good source. The elderly gentleman said about one piece should be enough to microdose.

I have done my research, but still felt trepidation. I thought of doing a quick run as running gets me runners high every single time and gets me in the zone. Also a friend of mine said that it really should be taken at Nature.

I scratched the running bit, but made a small intention: “God please cure my marijuana addiction.” Since no one was the park and it was a cool chirpy sunny day, I thought of sitting at the park bench and pop one. As I was going to walk towards the bench I saw a disgusting dog shit and almost puked. I took it as a ‘sign’ and thus went back to my car.

Now here is a note about set and setting. While set and setting is very important, but I find it to be overrated. I think many factors such as paralysis by analysis, unnecessary anxiety due to conform to a template of ritual and not trusting one’s own intuition can totally ruin the experience. While set and setting is important one shouldn’t get bogged down to it as be-all-end-all of everything. Personally I am a very intuitive right brained guy and thus I trust and decided to trust my own gut and intention.

I popped one and had a swisher. As in nicotine. A car before me was smoking weed and although I had no cash on me at that time, I thought I would ask them for some weed. (But at the back of my mind, I was like.. Why do weed if I just made an intention to get rid of it.) But if it wasn’t for the money for shrooms I would have gone to dispensary to get high again.

BACKGROUND: WEED ADDICTION

Rewind back a few days. I am sitting in my car as I was about to roll a joint after waking and baking. People say marijuana isn’t addictive but it gets people psychologically dependent. Well what good is ‘dependency’ if you have to wake and bake, get terrible anxiety every five hours after weed wears off and basically need it to function at baseline?

The Witness looked at myself rolling the joint in the most sad and pathetic fashion. I felt compassion for my helpless Self. Everyday I am in this bondage. I have been a stoner for 18+ years. It started slowly before it completely overhauled my life and before I knew it I needed it to survive.

I have tried everything. Ketosis, sensory deprivation, prayer, fasting, CBD treatment, willpower, replacing the habit with another ‘healthy’ habit, rewiring brain with other dopaministic activity, etc. The best success I had was with a sobriety app. which got me sober for 2 months before I relapsed. And it was all tooth and nail. Every fuckin day I had to do hard work and use willpower and grit my teeth.

In my mind, I got down to my knees and prayed to God. I begged Universe to give me guidance and free from this bondage. Addiction is a terrible disease you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy regardless it being something benign as cannabis or gambling or food or sex.

I was in tears. My Witness looked at the helpless self. I was abusing the drug. I begged to God in a prayer: “Please, please, I beg you. Please help me. Please guide me. Please. Please. Please.”

MICRODOSING

Back to the car, I thought of microdosing since it is the hot thing right now. You know lemon tekking, Stamets stack and what not. But after one, two and even three, since I felt nothing, I took another one. I knew due to metabolism to kick in it needs time. So I drove home disregarding my friends’ advice to be in nature. In retrospect that was the best decision. The dogshit was a good ‘sign’. (Because although set and setting is important what good is to be at park and suddenly get dogs chasing after me or go to nature center only to see a snake that I am afraid of… or say suddenly feel the need to use a filthy restroom at park. That would totally fuck up and butcher the experience. For me I would rather be at the comfort of my own home and bedroom, even though energy of my mother is a very negative one. My bedroom… even though I am in contact with my mom still gave me the warmth of my mother’s womb.)

Twenty minutes past. Still nothing. Slowly but surely I was feeling dizzy and nauseating. I tried to Google zillion questions about psilocybin, but I was disorinetedy and my queries were replete with typos. I somehow turned on TV when not peeing. One of the questions I would later type: Are magic mushrooms diuretic?

There was a cooking show and it was about mushroom. ‘Well it is an Italian cooking show. Sure it is merely a coincidence.’ But when another segment came that was again specifically about a mushroom recipe... I knew I was “in”. This type of synchronicity isn’t normal.

I laid down on my bed, but intermittently neded to pee every five minutes. Later on I would realize why. Mushrooms have their own intelligence. Mushrooms will give me exactly what I need and it will work in mysterious ways. It went down to work. It was detoxing me. Higher intellgience is in play.

Over the next 20 minutes, I would pee at least a dozen times. I felt nausea and hungry. My mom cooked steak and I hurriedly ate it with fries and coca cola and came back to my room.

I expected it to work like weed or even edibles. Since I felt nothing, I gradually downed the whole bag. An 1/8th. Fuck microdosing. I felt slight resentment for the guy and texted him: “It’s not working.” Because not only I was not getting high off shrooms, I could have used that money to get high off cannabis.

He texted back: “Relax. It takes time.”

I was lying down and put on some psychedelic trance music. That’s what people do while tripping. But I felt none of the music which I loved all the time.

Then I decided to relax and go with the flow and play chess. The guy was playing aggressively and even though I was disoriented, I suddenly became calm. I wasn’t playing logically per se, but I could see myself in him. He is aggressively making all the moves and not landing any punches. I calmly thought to myself without judgment about his gamesmanship: “...but it is not working.” Little did I know that calmness would last me till now as I type after a week.

The guy made blunders and finally resigned. I was a rook and bishop up and he wouldn’t resign. As I said, I saw myself in him. I am a very stubborn, egoistical person who doesn’t want to resign.

Anyway, I laid on my bed. That’s when the giddiness started. I started making jokes in my head and was giggling like a little child. Serotonin must be flooding through the roof.

Suddenly I said to myself: “What if one had sex with one’s Mom?” And I BURSTED out laughing. In that nondual, Sat-Cit-Ananda state it was the MOST ABSURD thing one could think off. In our ordinary consciousness it may be taboo, dirty and downright egregious, but while tripping that was the funniest shit ever. It is almost a child whispering to another child about penis and sex and giggling about it. The ABSURDISM is same as taking a carburetor out of a car’s engine and replacing it with a toaster. I mean completely nonsense and surreal. That’s when I “Got” the Cosmic Joke.

We take life wayyyyyyy too seriously. I concocted another joke and I bursted out laughed. I couldn’t contain the giddiness and needed to ground myself.

PEAK EXPERIENCE

About 40 minutes passed by I thought I would go out with my mom to do our grocery. (STRONG DISCLAIMER: DO NOT DRIVE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ANY PSYCHEDELICS OR PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES.) The reason I did it was because I was totally in my self, only had 3.5 grams and was ‘in sound mind’. I kept peeing and peeing.

As we drove to the ethnic marketplace, I realized why my friend said to be in Nature. The sunshine and outdoorsiness really gives the entourage effect to the effect.

Although I was not hallucinating, I had some sort of bodily/skin temperature hallucination. As I was driving, I felt my skin was wet with sweat. Then I looked at my arms. It wasn’t sweaty. I felt hot, but if I turned on the AC and fan I felt cold. If I rolled own the window, I still felt cold and if not I felt hot. (Could be I was absorbing negative energy of my mom, although she was super duper chill at that time as she was praying in the car.)

Upon reaching the ethnic marketplace, I got out. Suddenly I felt like Supermario ‘Boost’ on shrooms, no bad thing can possibly occur to me. I was protected. The karmic inkblot was taken off from the Rorschach of my psyche. I entered this tunnel or bubble so to speak where no bad things can possible happen. I felt creative when I parked. I got out of the car, and had the swagger of Bradley Cooper from Limitless. As I spotted a Cayenne, I blurted out in loud voice in front of everyone: Porsche!

This is not my normal self. I am usually very shy, reticent and reserved and walk with my head down looking at ground. Since I was drenched from the sweat and the grocery store was cold, I stopped by the entrance and asked the security guard if they provide jacket for the customers.

In my mind I was bursting out laughing. Cuz I was in total trollmode. As we were doing our grocery, I kept going to the bathroom and peeing. As I was in restroom, I felt like a Jim Carrey character when I pretended I heard a knock on the door. In my mind, I played out a scene where I opened the door and said to the guy: “We are closed, please come again” or pretending some bellyboy came and I am imagining to say: “Room service. Do you provide breakfast?”

Anyway, I wa brimming with full-fledged confidence with chest out and chin up. There were 100s of customers as it was Poojah. But majority of them - who were Hindus- were all very calm in the store. (This is a subtle and important point as I serendipitously surrounded myself with people with calm energy. Set and setting. By the way, I was born Muslim.) At the market, I saw divine reflection in everyone.

After we were done, we went to another store and drove back. And just as suddenly after 4 or 5 hours from liftoff, the whole thing suddenly stopped. I told my mom at the passenger seat sideways: ‘That’s it huh. It just stopped just like that.’ She obviously didn’t have the slightest clue wtf I was on.

AFTEREFFECT:

A week has elapsed. Last time I smoked something - ANYTHING- was the few puff of nicotine from swisher after the first five minutes of tasting the shroom. I have smoked pot for 18+ years and nothing that I could do could stop it.

I thought of waiting till 20 days from that day. But I am pretty confident it will last.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Just like that, psilocybin or magic mushrooms- precisely an 1/8th of it- cured my decade addiction. I feel no urge, no craving, no willpower, no griting teeth (KNOCK ON WOOD) nothing. Absolutely nothing. I won’t lie. During the past week, a few times, such as twice or thrice, felt like smoking some nicotine, but that was it and I didn’t. I just don’t want to go down the path of smoking anything as it might trigger a relapse. Mushrooms have been kind enough to give me a gift. Why squander it? Why not treat it early birthday gift with respect?

I still couldn’t believe for few days that just like that - just like fuckin magic it cured me. Later on I would watch Youtube videos - which made my blood boil in a sotto voce way..titled “How DEA is lying to you about mushrooms” because they really are.

3-3.5 grams was perfect for me…

I am utterly privileged and deeply grateful to the Universe, Reality, Simulation and God for providing me with this gift and opportunity to cure myself. I am forever indebted to the kindness and compassion of the Universe.

I am a week sober without any willpower. I thought of waiting for 20 days to ‘experiment’ if the experience will stick. But now I know deep in my heart if I don’t make a conscious decision to smoke weed or nicotine, I possibly wouldn’t have urge or craving by Grace of God.

Another unexpected ancillary (but very related) side effect is my anxiety has been wiped out clean. I even didn’t know I had so much anxiety. I feel so calm that I cannot believe a human can exist in such a calm head space twenty four hours seven days a week. It’s almost like being in perpetual flow state. I DM-ed someone if it will stick and last long. Turns out the after effects are and benefits of psilocybin are long lasting.

Now I know why they call it ‘magic’ mushrooms.

[Note: I wrote the fragments of this trip report next day. I fleshed it out after a week.]

APPENDIX: PAHNKE-RICHARDS MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE AFTER TRIP

Instructions: Looking back on the entirety of your psilocybin session, please rate the degree to which at any time during that session you experienced the following phenomena. Answer each question according to your feelings, thoughts, and experiences at the time of the psilocybin session. In making each of your ratings, use the following scale:
0 – none; not at all; 1 – so slight cannot decide; 2 – slight; 3– moderate; 4 – strong (equivalent in degree to any other strong experience); 5– extreme (more than any other time in my life and stronger than 4)
Factor 1: Mystical

Freedom from the limitations of your personal self and feeling a unity or bond with what was felt to be greater than your personal self.

4

Experience of pure being and pure awareness (beyond the world of sense impressions).

0

Experience of oneness in relation to an “inner world” within.

3

Experience of the fusion of your personal self into a larger whole.

2

Experience of unity with ultimate reality.

3

Feeling that you experienced eternity or infinity.

0

Experience of oneness or unity with objects and/or persons perceived in your surroundings.

3


Experience of the insight that “all is One”.

4

Awareness of the life or living presence in all things.

2

Gain of insightful knowledge experienced at an intuitive level.

4

Certainty of encounter with ultimate reality (in the sense of being able to “know” and “see” what is really real at some point during your experience.

3

You are convinced now, as you look back on your experience, that in it you encountered ultimate reality (i.e., that you “knew” and “saw” what was really real).

3

Sense of being at a spiritual height.

4

Sense of reverence.

2

Feeling that you experienced something profoundly sacred and holy.

3

Factor 2: Positive Mood

Experience of amazement.

4

Feelings of tenderness and gentleness.

4

Feelings of peace and tranquility.

4

Experience of ecstasy.

4

Sense of awe or awesomeness.

3

Feelings of joy.

4

Factor 3: Transcendence of Time and Space

Loss of your usual sense of time.

1

Loss of your usual sense of space.

0

Loss of usual awareness of where you were.

0

Sense of being “outside of” time, beyond past and future.

0

Being in a realm with no space boundaries.

0

Experience of timelessness.

0

Factor 4: Ineffability

Sense that the experience cannot be described adequately in words.

2

Feeling that you could not do justice to your experience by describing it in words.

2

Feeling that it would be difficult to communicate your own experience to others who have not had similar experiences.

2

TOTAL SCORE: 70

Exp Year: 2022	ExpID: 116754
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 40
Published: Oct 28, 2022	Views: 497
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