DOSE:

2.25 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

132 lb

I have to say that my first trip with shrooms was not at all disappointing.

I had been trying to get a hold of some mushrooms for almost a year, since I heard my best friend Andrew tell me his experience. I am extremely spiritual and I’ve been looking to learn something beyond what the physical universe can offer me.

My trip was an extremely well-planned experience, which was a great advantage since I wouldn’t have to worry about trying to control my environment once I started. It also encased the trip within a greater experience.

The night before, we had a dinner party with my close circle of friends at Andrew’s house, which was the base of operations for the weekend. Most of those present would be sharing in the experience the next morning. Most of us stayed overnight in his house, to make it easier to get started when we woke up.

I had been recommended a few things from friends to ensure the most positive trip experience, such as doing it in a sunny day outdoors, and taking some vitamin C. It was sunny when we woke up, so it looked like everything was a go. We ate a good breakfast with some orange juice. Then I prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the mushrooms chopped up in them for three of us. We had bought ¼ oz of field-picked mushrooms that we would split three ways. Then we (Camille, Kerim, Andrew, Vince, Laura, and myself) all went to a local park.

The flora, fauna and wildlife of this place are amazing, so this would definitely make for a magical experience. We sat down on a blanket on the grass, and took our doses: Camille, Kerim, and I ate our shroom sandwiches, while Laura and Vince took some LSD stamps. Andrew only smoked some pot so he could babysit us all day—really a great idea.

We did some meditations, walked around in the sun and talked for a bit, and then finally about half an hour later, a sense of euphoria and light-headedness started to very slowly set in for me. Andrew took me on a tour of the gardens, observing different beautiful plants, turtles, and fish, for some added stimulus. Then he left Camille and I alone under a giant banyan tree amidst a dense rainforest-like area of the park, and went to go check on the others.

At this point, I lost all sense of time, and my ability to speak and think normally, yet otherwise I was only feeling an extremely pleasant and intense high. Camille however was very confused with her loss of total control, and was struggling momentarily to settle into the whole new experience. I observed this, and worried a little that she would have a negative trip, but remembered not to try and sympathize her, as this might only scare her more. Instead we stayed mostly quiet, while all around us the world seemed to change into a place of unknown quality. After focusing on the great tree in front of us for a while, Camille had zoned out intensely, and, practically unable to communicate and apparently unaware of the fact, she began to tear heavily. Almost as soon as she started though, she stopped, and burst out laughing. I’m sure this was just the chemical making its way throughout her brain for the first time.

After what seemed like hours later, although I’m sure it was only maybe 20 minutes, Andrew returned to our spot, followed by what seemed like a silly cartoon parade—Kerim, Laura, and Vince all smiling and laughing. At this point the trip took off with positive energy, and Camille and I were suddenly lifted from our entranced states. We just became this tour of travelers in a magical land, lead by Andrew, who seemed to be an incarnation of Dr. Seuss himself.

We made another rounds of the park, and saw many things that seemed very magical and amazing. We went over by this huge pond in an open area, surrounded by a bowl of tropical wildlife. Right near the edge of this bowl area were about a dozen large iguanas, who were studying us in a way that fascinated us, so we studied them back. Most amazing about this was the largest iguana, which was a bright orange color none of us had ever witnessed. We talked to this iguana like he was the king of another species. All the while, my euphoria ensued. I didn’t really have a single negative moment in my whole trip.

We went to a few other exciting places in the park before we left, including a path that lead through wildlife that looked exactly like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. The whole time, I heard the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour song repeating in my head. Soon we left, and headed back to Kerim’s SUV, Andrew in the driver seat. To my great surprise and delight, Andrew through on the Magical Mystery Tour album and started blasting it, which excited us all. At this point, I definitely feel like all of us, including Andrew, were very much connected in the experience, sharing positive energy and witnessing the same spectacle.

Andrew decided to give us the most amazing time ever. He peeled out of the parking lot recklessly, and tore down the streets of the neighborhood, a few of us tumbling around in the back of the car. [Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]

To all of us, it really became THE Magical Mystery Tourbus. He pulled some antics and changed destinations a few times, eventually making a stop by the bay, so we could step out for a quick whiff of ocean air, then back onto the bus. After half an hour of this, we wound up back at his house, the safe haven for the rest of our crazy activities.

Here, I came down a little bit from the first and highest peak of the experience, which was the car ride. Our good friends Danny and Megan arrived to add to the good company. When we got inside the house, we changed the pace a little by putting on a Sound Tribe Sector 9 live album I had. This was truly blissful for me, as their music is among my favorite, very energetic and positive, and extremely trippy as well. I experienced a few things here of note.

First off, Danny, who had shroomed before and was very good at communicating at that level, started performing many visually and symbolically stimulating dances to the STS9 music. I started seeing symbols in everything, and my thoughts dwelled on metaphysical musings often for the rest of the day. Especially interesting was the concept of absolute duality in everything in the universe. Key words were back and forth, remembering and forgetting, etc.

At one point, Camille and I started making faces at each other, which was extremely interesting, because I wasn’t aware of controlling it. Apparently, after talking about it with her later, this was another very connected moment, as we were experiencing it exactly the same way. Every time I would change my face, she would at the exact same time in the exact same way as if we shared the same mind, or like in a mirror. And even more enjoyable about it, was the fact that with each movement, the visual got stickier and stickier, so that instead of actually appearing to move or change positions or facial expressions, it actually seemed as if Camille’s face (and mine apparently) were morphing into something else, along with the room around us. It was one of my strongest hallucinations, and one of my favorite.

This caused me to go off on another track of thinking entirely. At this point I started thinking entirely too much. I was suddenly and entirely convinced that my whole reality was in fact within me, a product of my subconscious or my soul, and that everyone and everything was an extension of my being talking to myself, that it could change at any moment because none of it was necessarily real, just my accepted reality. This was very confusing, and I came to many exciting revelations, some that made me even more confused, before I was able to just let it drop and get back into enjoying the moment. I did have an interesting chat with my reflection in the mirror in the bathroom though.

Among the other hallucinations I experienced at the house: Camille and I went out back for a while, and she started drawing with her feet in the dirt, making realistic extensions to tree roots where they went underground. After a while, a shape like a stylized Tree of Life took shape, and suddenly I noticed all the branches she had drawn were actually flowing rivers of light.

And one of the most memorable, perhaps because it was the only other time that there was such a great connection and shared experience: Laura had brought a few books to look at, among them a fractals book, and a collection of Hubble Space Telescope photos in color. We opened up the space photos and looked at a picture of a beautiful nebula. Vince then took his finger and touched it to the center of the nebula, and it was as if he was a god that gave his spark of life to it, because after he took his finger away, the four of us (Vince, Laura, Camille, and I) were amazed to see the picture actually come to life and take over our senses. I swear, with no exaggeration, each picture of some gaseous cloud in space was swirling realistically as if we held the actual in our hands. It was better visuals than the Electric Sheep screen saver is (which I wish I had available to look at on my trip, maybe next time).

At some point I remember feeling as though I had discovered how language really works. I felt very whimsical in this experience, and I walked up to Andrew in the kitchen, said “I have discovered language! I’m thirsty. What would be best to drink? Ah! I shall ask you, with my new tool of language!” It was all so exciting.

The rest of my experience was just as fantastic. When we started to come down slightly, we smoked some weed, which got us back until sundown. We played some video games, mostly Mario Kart 64 (I definitely recommend Rainbow Road), which made a lot more sense to me now. It amused me that I used the power of mushrooms both inside the game and out, and experienced a moment where there was no difference between the game and reality. Then the sun eventually went down, and the lights came on in the house. People started leaving and the experience was done, after what seemed like an entire year on another planet.

All in all, it was the purest trip I could hope for. I doubt anyone could count on having a trip like that every time, but I also learned that having too many expectations can be a bit of a let down. I wanted to experience more of the things that I had heard about, but each experience is different I know now.

I had no negative moments at all, but I also did not experience the total loss of ego I was aiming for, so spiritually it was insufficient. Next time I will try to get homegrown specimens of a higher potency, or at least take a higher dose. Also, the sheer amount of external stimulus and excitement, moving around, and people prevented the calm, internal trip experience I was aiming for I’m sure. Next time I plan on staying in one spot outdoors, listening to and watching nature and doing a lot of meditation, not so much talking or moving around.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 66717
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 1, 2014	Views: 5,779
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Mushrooms (39), Cannabis (1) : General (1), First Times (2), Nature / Outdoors (23), Music Discussion (22), Small Group (2-9) (17)