DOSE: T+ 0:00	2.5 g	oral	Mushrooms
T+ 0:30		smoked	Cannabis
T+ 1:20		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

90 lb

Age: 18
Gender: F
Weight: 90 lbs
Psychedelic experience: Mushrooms, LSA, LSD, salvia, DXM, marijuana, as well as MDMA, cocaine, and various painkillers and uppers

Last night, I was able to procure a small amount of magic mushrooms, about a quarter of an ounce, which I split three ways between myself and two girls I'd met recently after beginning college. Neither of them had tripped before, but this being my eighth mushroom experience I figured that no matter what happened that night I'd be able to keep the situation under control. We dosed, simply chewing the plant matter and washing the foul-tasting fungus down with soda, and stepped outside to smoke hookah on the steps of our residence hall with several other (sober) people. In our immediate group were three others who had come along to tripsit and keep us in a good frame of mind. As a philosophy major, I primed myself for a predominantly mental experience to draw on.

About (t+0:30), the six of us piled into a car to drive and smoke a couple of bowls. I'd started to feel the first signs of the come-up: the hollow, breathy feeling inside my chest, a detachment from my surroundings, a decreased ability to form complex sentences. By the time we'd stopped and I'd loaded the second bowl, the smaller of the two girls I was tripping with had started to feel the effects as well. She started to laugh uncontrollably. After the pipe had made its way past her, she suddenly choked and began to puke. Everyone busted out of the car, but the girl kept laughing like crazy. We filed back into the vehicle, and I began to notice that my vision has changed immensely. Though it was dark, I could see fractals in the lawn and car interior, incredible morphing geometric shapes that defined the edges of whatever I focused on. The girl who had choked started to explain similar patterns, and we sat in awe of the hallucinations. I watched swirling shapes of subtly altered colors take root in everything in my surroundings, but what interested me most was the shadow of a tree on the lawn beside the car. Patterns in the grass lined up and became ordered, symmetrical and consistent, changing and dancing only along the edges of the shadow. We started to head back towards the dorms, and on the car ride there I felt dizzy and drunk. All along the way the vehicle was full of unbridled laughter, infectiously spreading from the trippers to the others.

(t+1:05)
Once we'd returned to the stoop outside the dorm, the three of us on mushrooms broke off from the others and fell down on the grass. We watched the stars, which seemed to ooze down from the heavens. The other girls were still engaged in a laughing fit, but I found myself feeling more and more isolated. I thought about my boyfriend, who lives seven hours away in a much larger city, with whom I'd tripped several times. I had typically always tripped with my significant other of the time, as I'd found mushrooms to be a fantastic way to bond with another person. I believe that my past experiences had started to color my present trip, as throughout the night I felt myself to be a lonely half of a whole, the phantom presence of my absent partner causing me to feel increasingly depressed.

(t+1:20)
I moved from the grass back to the stoop, where I met up with another group of friends, people whom I'd gone to high school with and with whom I was much closer. They wished me luck on my trip and made me feel more comfortable than the group I had been tripping with. I offered to smoke with them and they obliged, and we started back towards the construction site behind the residence hall. The third girl on mushrooms asked to join us, having been temporarily abandoned by her sitter. This ended up being a serious issue, as once we'd settled down to smoke she began to get angry phone calls from the sitters back on the stoop. One of my friends labeled it the 'phone of negativity', and from there I could see the girl start to get anxious. She demanded we go back to the front, but we were waiting for another person to arrive before we began smoking. Here's where things started to break down for me. Of the guys that I was there with, one, B, started to talk on meditative techniques in order to calm the girl down. B is a very spiritual person and has always intrigued me with his ideas on life. However, his talk started to freak out the tripping girl to the extent that she walked off, alone, towards the front.

(t+1:50)
As I thought about B's comments, I began to recognize how language imposes a serious and detestable barrier on the nature of our thoughts and our social interaction. Sitting in the construction site I found myself completely unable to hold a conversation and wished that the others would simply just not address me at all. Unfortunately, one of the people who had travelled there with us was going to smoke pot for the first time, and every couple of seconds would consult me about how he was supposed to do it and wanted to know what would signal that he was high. I tried my best to explain but feared that I was just confusing him more. I finally, unable to continue like this with heavy thoughts on my mind, said good night to my friends and started to head back. I received several concerned expressions, but needed to return to my room.

(t+2:20)
In the lobby of my building I met two other friends, who advised me on my trip and warned me that I would not be able to sleep. This I knew, and I had no intention of sleeping - I just needed a place where I would feel safe, be able to think and be still, and be away from anyone who might bother me. I knew that my roommate was already inside the room, and she knew that I was tripping that night. When I came inside she barraged me with words and conversation which I could not keep up with and did not want to be subject to: I told her that I intended on sleeping and climbed into my bed. I felt bad for abandoning my tripping partners, yet I felt I needed to manifest something worthwhile through this enhanced mindset and would only be distracted by them.

Throughout the night I had been immersed in thoughts which I recognized as foreign to my sober mind but also ever-present in my unconscious, issues and drives that I KNEW I had always felt and known existed within me, though as I write this I feel so much more distant to these forces. As usual subject matter in my mushroom experiences I wanted to apologize to my family, my boyfriend, and my friends for being such a douchebag so much of the time. I felt simultaneously ugly and horrible and pretty and worthwhile, alone and connected, inept and perfect. The main theme was two-fold: I thought myself to be the center of a web of loving, caring, beautiful souls, people who I adored beyond words and needed beyond simple sustenance. On the other side I acknowledged how afraid I was of life and time, absolutely terrified by who and what I was. Life seemed a charade of distractions and restrictions whose sole purposes were to keep us from seeing the utter pointlessness of life and killing ourselves. I wanted so badly to commit suicide that night, to drop out from this unbeatable maze. I was unable to see people as people, and felt no greater than the lowest animal. The concepts of food, of drink, of drugs all disgusted me greatly. Watching commercials on the television set my roommate had left on I began to feel sick, and slowly made my way to the bathroom across the hall to vomit (which looked gorgeous blooming in the toilet bowl, as gross as that is). I felt bewildered and insane, but regardless that the trip was meaningful.

I also was able to distinguish the two things that did matter to me in life: love and learning. As I lay immobile in my bed I felt a great desire to acquire knowledge in my life and become closer to The Truth through experience, research and experimentation. As well, I knew from the very beginning of the trip that I was very much driven by the idea of everlasting love and companionship. I felt that if my boyfriend had been there with me, he would have known everything that I was thinking and feel everything that I was feeling through the bond of our relationship, our every impulse and realization known by the other as if we were one being. I woke up in the morning with the concept of Soulmates imbedded in my mind.

These varied thoughts occured to me over the span of four hours which I spent tossing and turning in my bed, hallucinating wildly and at times sobbing silently. The binding concept which tied all of these topics of contemplation and intrigue together was that mushrooms had lifted a veil on my psyche. In my stable, sober mind I am removed from these issues and drives - but I felt their immortality and constant presence under the influence of such a psychedelic. One of the telling signs of this was that throughout the trip I would think clearly 'I know this feeling - I know I've always felt this way. Certainly everyone must recognize these facts.'

I finally fell asleep once the hallucinations had subsided around (t+6:00). This morning I feel different. I intend to take an indefinite break from smoking both marijuana and cigarettes. I feel the need to eat healthier, to exercise, and moreover to take school more seriously. I want to cultivate the bonds I have with my friends. I want to become closer to life, as I was so close to death (or at least the desire to take my own life) last night. Though I've tripped quite a few times previous to this experience, I have never taken so much away.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 65960
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 5, 2009	Views: 13,495
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