DOSE:

7.0 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

The original plan was for me to take the mushrooms with my girlfriend, Muse. She was going to take a dose around 2 grams while I would take roughly 4 or 4.5. Muse has only tripped once on acid, and she did not handle that well. I was a little nervous about her trying mushrooms, and when the day came she said that she felt the same way. She was comfortable with the idea of sitting for me while I tripped, so I decided to take a full two eighths myself. I put the seven grams of dried mushrooms in a blender with OJ, and drank the concoction.

Within five minutes I was feeling the first effects. Muse and I were sitting outside on my balcony when I began to giggle. This was not a giddy giggle, but more of a nervous and frightened giggle. I had never felt so much from mushrooms in such a short amount of time. There was already a pronounced pressure on my chest, and visual disturbances were becoming more intense with every passing moment. I knew that this was going to be a long and hard trip, most definitely harder than any of my previous mushroom experiences.

I managed to push this thought aside for a while, and began to feel the effects take over my body. Muse and I had returned inside my room and I lay on my bed and began to laugh hysterically. I was giddy and everything seemed incredibly funny. Actually, it was the fact that I had taken such a massive dose of mushrooms that was so funny. I couldn’t believe that I had willingly put myself into a situation where I would be tripping so hard. There also seemed to be an accompanying adrenaline rush that seemed to make things even worse.

I remember looking up at Muse. She was gorgeous. My mushroom visuals, which were now quite intense, forming intricate and concrete patterns, made her look as though she were a goddess. I seemed to be able to see an aura surrounding her. I know it sounds rather cliche, but it’s true. I also began to make out a third eye on her forehead, this made me laugh since I had never considered myself to be in close contact with such an enlightened individual as the girl I had been going out with for over a year and a half.

Slowly my ego began to slip away. I began dwelling on my own identity. I needed to know what it meant to be alive. What is it? It is still a subject that concerns me today. Is waking up and going to school and work being alive? Is sitting around with your friends being alive? Is watching movies and listening to music what it is to be alive?

I narrated all my thoughts out loud to Muse, and they began to become rather incomprehensible. I kept on repeating phrases such as, “am I alive or what, I don’t get it”. Everything I said ended with “I don’t get it”. Thoughts seemed much too complicated for me to analyze. I believed that what I was meditating on were subjects that normal everyday people never even attempt to grasp. All of life seemed rather meaningless. Everyone’s struggle to gain material possessions was making me sick, and I became very depressed.

I had been working at Safeway as a courtesy clerk (a nice way of saying bag boy) for some time, and this strongly affected my trip. A requirement of the job was for me to greet every customer I came into contact with, and offer help in finding different products. Most customers seemed annoyed rather than grateful for the offer. I began to feel as though I was a voyeur prying into other people’s lives. I felt like I was slowly becoming yet another one of Safeway’s countless products. Customers would not treat me as another human, but as a nuisance barging in upon their pleasant little sheltered lives.

I thought about what little effect I had upon their lives, and what a profound impact I was feeling from them. Did they even notice me? Do they know who I was? Did they ever go home and think about the nice bag boy at Safeway, or do they just push me out of their mind? Do they know that their actions deeply affect me?

Mushrooms make me have to pee quite frequently (does anyone else get this?) and during one of my trips to the bathroom I really understood how hard I was tripping. My self-identity had not withstood such a beating in years, and it seemed as though I was trapped on a downward spiral. When I emerged from the bathroom things became worse. Muse was sitting on my bed crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she was scared for me. She thought I was going crazy and she didn’t know what to do.

Muse has very little experience with psychedelics, and has still only seen me under their influence a couple times. This lack of experience coupled with my seemingly un-treefingers’s-like actions freaked her out. And her freaking out freaked me out.

I became paranoid, and I too began crying. My struggles to find meaning in life obtained a darker tinge. I felt meaningless and alone and ugly. I tried to hide my face from Muse, and in retrospect I believe I was trying to hide my extremely vulnerable form from her. I had dredg’s el cielo playing in the background, and I began thinking about this incredible band. I had attended a few of their shows, and I began thinking about how strongly this band had affected my life, and how little I mattered to them. Did they even notice me when I was at their shows? Did they even care? Of course, the answer is no, but when I came to this conclusion whilst under mushroom’s powerful grip, it was devastating.

I cried, and my ego still dissolved. Suddenly an instrumental track on el cielo came on. This track was a personal favorite of mine, and its melancholy tone struck deep within me. I said to myself, “uh-oh, it’s the dying song”, dropped slowly to the ground and died. I laid on the floor and felt my breath slowly cease. I felt my identity leave me. I laid on the ground for the next few songs, and finally decided it was time again for my rebirth.

I got up and asked Muse to call Kid A. I talked with him on the phone for a few minutes, but I don’t recall what was said. I remember he told me not to freak out, and I’m pretty sure I told him that I can do whatever the hell I wanted. I then gave the phone back to Muse who told Kid A all about my mushroom trip. I went to go lay again on the floor, and bumped up against a cardboard box with my head. I touched the box with my hands, and in my confusion uttered, “what the hell is this, is this a part of me or what, I don’t get it”. I believed that it was a part of my skull that I had never noticed having. But in the end, it was only a cardboard box.

My trip was now in its tail end. The peak was over, but it would still be a long ride home. I began feeling as though I were living out several lives simultaneously. A couple resounded strongly within me. I told Muse about my different lives.

I was a middle-aged man, fat and balding. And utterly disgusting. My wife was leaving me, and in my depression I could not even wash myself. I watched tv and slowly rotted away. I was alone.

I was a young man, and I had just returned from Vietnam. I was with my wife again after years apart, and I should’ve been happy, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know this woman anymore. Well actually I did, she seemed a little older and more tired, but what was worse was that she didn’t know me anymore. She didn’t see the images of war that I did. She didn’t experience the horrible aspects of human life. She saw war glorified by the government and I saw death.

These stories are a little embarrassing to tell. As I’m writing them they seem childish and exaggerated. But they were real to me. I didn’t know who I was, I was a wondering soul. I was lost.

Muse went home after a while, and I lay in bed thinking about my different lives until I fell asleep. It was rather interesting, and for a while I actually believed that these lives may have been me reliving my past lives, but I’m not so sure anymore. Some of the lives didn’t sync up timewise, but of course, time may be different in our different lives.

It’s interesting to note that I hardly touch on the visual aspect of this trip, or any of them for that matter. When someone is initially interested in doing psychedelics it is primarily for the visual, and synaesthesia aspects of the drug, but it is not even close to being the important aspect of these drugs. I had extremely intense visuals throughout this whole mushroom trip, and while I enjoyed them at times, and was quite frightened by them at times, that part of the trip was completely overshadowed by the intense cognitive effects and banishing of my ego.

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 29863
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 15, 2004	Views: 38,393
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