DOSE: T+ 0:00		oral	Mushrooms - P. subaeruginosa	(fresh)
T+ 1:55	1 hit	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(extract - 10x)

BODY WEIGHT:

66 kg

I had just watched the metallica documentary ('some kinda monster') when I got a txt message from a good friend of mine saying that she had gotten hold of some shrooms from a reliable friend of hers (she knew I really wanted to have a shroom experience as I had studied them and other psychedelics for a couple of years, read T. Mckenna and Leary etc). Before I knew it I was in my car and heading to my friends house to have some shrooms. Coincidentally I hadn't eaten in about 5 hours since I had gone to the gym earlier and not eaten since.

Now before I go on I will briefly describe my attitude towards reality, and educational experience so that things I say later on are better understood. I am in my 5th year at university and am currently studying towards a BSc in psychology and animal physiology. I already have a BA in philosophy and am very philosophically and artistically minded. I already know all theory regarding psychedelics and their revelations (we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively in different realities etc) from reading everything from Bill Hicks (the comedian) to Drunvalo Melchizedek, not to mention all the experiences online (some of which I believe to be genuine literary masterpieces). I am also (as is my friend) a huge fan of the band ‘Tool’ and Alex Grey who does a lot of their album and concert art work.

Okay enough of that. I drove to my friends place (at about 9.45pm) and noticed that some friends of her and her husband (K) were there, some of which were already well into their shroom trips. I went in, said hello to people and soon enough was staring at the tiny shrooms (roughy 10 fresh caps and stalks; caps above 1cm in diameter) whilst listening to Tools new album 10,000 days. I identified them as Subaeruginosa (as I had predicted they would be) and soon enough started eating them straight. After eating a few, the taste started to get really quite bad and I down the rest using the aid of soft drink containing caffeine (roughly 10.25pm). K had had mushroom tea and I sat and talked to him and my friend for a while as I waited patiently for effects. This took longer than I had expected as I have fast digestion and thought that might mean that the effects would come on faster. But no. Slowly after an hour I gradually got more and more CNS arousal as psilocybin did its rounds in my body causing weird and slightly comfortable cushy feelings feelings in various parts. After a while my visual acuity became sharper (as expected) and my pupils slowly got bigger and bigger. K was getting the slight runny nose (T. Mckenna stated to be a standard side effect of psilocybin). After watching tv for a while and laughing like crazy at random things, my perception started changing and my depth perception was getting very trippy and the couch adjacent to mine that my friends were on started looking very small.

After a while (at about 12.20am) me and K decided to have some Salvia I had brought, so we did. At this point I was almost at the peak and everything was very weird and confusing (and I was very self conscious about being confused and looking crazy). Things looked very weird depth wise and I got confused a lot, but altogether I was fine — just tripping out perceptually really. Once I had smoked the salvia I got that all too familiar salvia feeling and the cold chill it gives to my body which is quite discomforting. I felt the force that normally pulls me in whilst on salvia only faintly, but I did get the weird weird paranoia that I typically get on salvia — that everyone is part of (playing) a practical joke on me and laughing at my confusion. Since I was already on shrooms, this made me very confused and paranoid about the people around me (who looked blurry’ish at this point) and I looked at each once of them oddly in suspicion. I thought that I was the only one that existed and that they were all part of a reality designed to mess with my head and laugh at how confused I was as if I was a fool of sorts. This wasn’t really the case tho as they were just asking if I was ok etc.

A bit later people were leaving and going to bed so I oddly decided I would have to drive home (my preference at the time). Now I do not recommend this to anyone and advise that anyone on shrooms (at any stage of the trip) to NOT drive/ride anything! [Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]
I was freaked at first but after a while I thought to myself “well ur an experienced driver and have done this a zillion times so just take it easy and drive!”. So I didn’t in the end. It was scary as I was paranoid about driving in a less than straight manner without realizing it. The road looked so wide and streets seemed to go on forever! Quite a lot of time distortion it seemed. I pulled over a few times so that following cars could get past me and so that I could regain my composure. I got fully lost and my sense of direction was very poor. I started listening to Tool 10,000 days on my stereo for a familiar comfort.

I noticed after a bit that it seemed like I was in a computer simulation of driving on a road. My consciousness was slightly out of my body and I could see the imaginatory nature of my reality (as an experience of consciouness). I could even see black at the street horizon in the distance and then slowly the rest of the road will show itself — as if my mind was projecting the reality I was experiencing (driving towards) (something I recall Alex Grey commenting on whilst describing his painting “Theologue”). The thought came to me that my mind was the only thing that exists and that everyone is part of this imaginatory reality that they actually think is real and take it so seriously. This thought is baffling. I could almost see where this reality ends as one part of the imagination that creates it.

I don’t know how long I was driving for but I miraculously managed to find my way home in one mystified piece. I looked in the mirror and my face was changing slightly and seemed amazing cos that was me, the idea of ‘me’ – my ego existing as this physical thing (body) baffled me for a bit, it seemed amazing as my consciousness had expanded to the point that I experienced everything as a feeble creation of my expansive mind, or at least this one reality as one part of its imagination. I thought that I was all that existed and that it (our reality) was all a powerful illusion meant as an alternate reality experience. This supposed ‘physical’ reality was not reminiscient of the real reality (of nothing but mind and imagination) any more than what its complexity and how convincing it is may show of the power of the minds imagination.

I went outside and looked at the clouds above (at about 3am). The clouds were doing only what I was projecting them to do, in this case the were moving in a curve-like motion and then rewinding back, this happened continuously and I got the feeling once again that this was an illusory reality and I was seeing it from outside the doors of normal human (convincing) perception. I went back inside and went on my computer, eventually I went to bed and had trouble sleeping cos I felt so disappointed and worked up over the supposed fact that I was the only thing that existed. I felt lonely and I longed for someone/thing to acknowledge me, to comfort me in existence and perhaps love me? Something that could reassure me given the suffering I have endured in my life due to heartbreak.

I thought that my trouble in finding a gf (I have only ever had one ever and that lasted a long time) was reminiscient of the fact that the greater mind is lonely existing as just one all-encompasing entity. Maybe that is why is creates such convincing alternative realities to experience — to experience and experiment with the illusion of interacting with and being loved by something else, something else that is really just itself in a different time-space continuum of sorts that it somehow creates with its omnipotent creative imagination.

At around 3.45 when all effects had more or less subsided, I felt disappointed that all these other people (including Homer Simpson! :P) experienced entity contact and trans-dimensional mind travel etc, something that loves them or tells them cool/interesting/wise stuff etc, and all I get is the revelation that this reality is a creation of my own expansive imagination, that I am the only thing that exists. Did I eat too many shrooms? Or was it too few? I long for something more than the somewhat depressing revelation in a trip that I am all that exists. I never saw visions so much as I created visions as a more expansive being slightly outside of this illusory reality. What I mean by this is that ones identity becomes that of the god head (or at least an individual as part of the god head), so that when visions are seen they are not experienced from the individuals perspective so much as they are from the perspective of a higher mind that creates them as this reality collapses slightly under the expanded consciousness. This might sound confusing but I was hoping for interpersonal contact instead of having such a personal expansive experience and feeling lonely in the end. Perhaps I shouldn’t feel lonely — I don’t know.

Next time I will try taking shrooms in daylight so as to alter the set and setting to the point of having a different experience. I will also endeavor to have a ‘heroic’ dose in silent darkness (as recommended by McKenna) in order to see if it takes me beyond this particular part of the imagination (this reality from my expanded perspective). I’m so sure that there are more ‘alien’ worlds that can be experienced on shrooms and other-entity contact given that is so common in the literature, after all this was just my first time.

In the end the experience really didn’t change me at all, I merely came to see that which I had already realized and understood theoretically (through A LOT of research and philosophy), but as such had a less-amusing experience.

I do however think that the convincing nature of this reality is a total miracle, given that I have seen it for what It really is — an experience of the consciousness created by one hell of a powerful imagination (as it must be). Its so weird how we can experience this as individuals in a very much solid physical reality! We should all treasure inter-personal contact, the joys of this reality (world) and especially intimate relationships.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 52922
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 14, 2006	Views: 69,765
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Mushrooms - P. subaeruginosa (123) : Small Group (2-9) (17), First Times (2)