DOSE:

5.5 caps

oral

Amanitas - A. muscaria

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

Here in the Rheinland-Pfalz area of Germany, Amanita muscaria are exceedingly common between September and October, so long as you keep your eye open. I’ve been collecting these left and right for the last couple of months. Every time I see them, I pull over and dig them out of the ground, wash them off when I get home and lay them out to dry in front of a fan. My roommate, D, has a few friends to whom he introduced me about two weeks ago who were also really into the idea of trying these mushrooms. I tried them last year with my roommate: we each had three caps, but nothing much happened. We just ended up feeling really high after about two or three hours and then having lots of really vivid dreams that night. That was fun, but nothing like what I expected from reading about others’ experiences. He and I and his friend J all tried them this year, this time with five caps each. However, I think we let the tea boil for too long; most of the water had evaporated and we had to add more water just to be able to get a drinkable amount. I think now that most of the muscimol must have evaporated with the water. We enjoyed some cannabis after our tea and felt pretty antsy a couple hours later, and we ended up running around a playground like it was the most fun thing you could do.

My story is about my third and most recent attempt at these mushrooms. I’ll tell you right now, it was absolutely terrifying. There are some rules everyone talks about when it comes to hallucinogens: Be in comfortable surroundings, know and trust the people you’re with, be in a good part of your life when you have a generally positive outlook, et cetera….well there are reasons for these rules. There are also reasons, when people talk of this particular mushroom, that you are warned not to take this one lightly because it’s not like psilocybin, not to take it unless you’re an experienced tripper, not to underestimate it. I made the mistake of letting my guard down, thinking that my three good psilocybin trips and two largely uneventful experiences with A. muscaria made me some kind of expert, and now I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to do these again.

I was with the people D had introduced me to: J, S, and A. D was at work, and the other three and I decided to get together and try to really get a trip out of these. We boiled about 22 dried caps of all sizes from small buttons to large nearly mature mushrooms into tea. Split among four people, that’s about 5 ½ caps for each of us. This isn’t much more at all from the last time we tried, but instead of boiling the tea for an hour, we boiled it for 20-30 minutes so that too much water wouldn’t evaporate. S ended up sleeping all day instead of drinking the tea, so we saved his for him in the fridge. J, A, and I drank ours, and the onset was surprisingly quick. I started feeling really floaty within a half hour or so. I found out that A and J had both thrown up, but I never got that nauseous. A went to lie down, and J and I went for a walk. It was enjoyable at first. We were both really talkative, trying to describe what we were feeling. I started to lose my coordination. Speech was difficult because I kept forgetting what I was saying or trying to say, and I felt like I was floating. I started to stumble every once in a while. I decided we should head back to the house, because if this was working so well already, I was probably going to just fall down soon. (That’s what I’ve read happens anyway.)

At their house, things started to flicker. Not lights or anything, but my consciousness. I lay down on the couch for a while because I didn’t feel very well able to stand. Flicker. I’m asking if I can go to the bathroom. Flicker. I’m in the bathroom. Flicker. I’m about to walk back out of the bathroom, but I realize my pants are still unbuttoned. Flicker. “Can I lie down in a bed?” Flicker. I’m lying down. Confused. How hard am I tripping? Where is everyone else? Am I alive? Can I do this? “Can I…?” is a question I remember asking aloud many times. Flicker. I feel myself under the blanket and I wonder where my shirt is. I look up and see J staring at me. Flicker. Now my bra is gone. I see J and either A or S, and they look like they’re laughing. I start to panic. Where are my clothes? Why am I not wearing them? Am I the only one tripping like this? Why are they laughing at me? Is this a joke? I think to ask for my phone, so I can call D. I want to go home. I don’t get a chance to ask before I flicker out again. I come back in a few more times, each time exactly as the last. I get to the point where I want to ask for my phone, and never get to ask. Flicker. Again. Again. Again. Laughter.

I feel like they’re trying to hold me down. I lunge from the bed frantically, covering my chest with my arms, look around for my bra. J has it in hand and hands it to me. She looks worried. Flicker. I’m running through the living room doorway. I see my phone on the couch and lunge for it. I’m held back by arms around my waist. Why won’t they let me call D? Flicker. I’m lying down in bed again. I bolt up and beg for my phone. I beg them to let me call D. Flicker. Again. Again. Flicker. I’m on the phone. “How many times have I called you?” I asked this every time the scene replayed. I’m told later on that I repeated this over and over.

Flicker. I’m being held down. S is here by now to help them. They’re afraid that their neighbors are going to call the cops because the apartment has really thin walls. All they want is for me to be quiet. I’m convinced that they’re trying to rape me. That they’re using my inability to do anything as an invitation. I look to A, sitting on the foot of the bed, pleading with my eyes. I didn’t think HE would let this happen, even if it was S’s idea and J went along with it. I scream as loud as I can. All I want is for some neighbor to hear me and save me from this. S covers my mouth and yells at me to shut up. Flicker. I’m flailing around, trying to get away. Flicker. I reach for J’s hair and pull her by it. Everyone stops for a minute to help her. Flicker. I scream. Flicker. S’s hands are around my neck. I can’t breathe. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to choke you until you pass out.” I nod. He lets go. I scream. Flicker. I’m aware of my teeth sunk into somebody’s flesh. I think it’s their arm. (I found out later it was S’s chest). Flicker. S’s hands are around my wrists. He threatens to break them if I’m not quiet. I’m terrified. Flicker. “Maybe we should put her out in the car until he gets here.” I want nothing more than to be away from these people. I want to go out there, but I can’t speak. Flicker. D’s voice. I’m calmer. “You were holding her down? That was really a bad idea. You probably just freaked her out more.” I’m sitting on the couch in the living room with my arms around D as if he was my mother and I was a frightened child. I don’t know how I got here. I’m not panicking anymore, because I can move and because I know D won’t let them hurt me.

Flicker. I’m being led down the stairs. Every few seconds, I would by myself lose all coordination and fall, so I have to be held up and guided by D. We’re outside. He leans me against the car and helps me in the passenger side. Little kids are staring. I slump into the seat and try to listen to what J, D, and S are saying. Just talking about what happened. Flicker. D’s put on Pink Floyd in the car. I keep apologizing. J is on the phone with D to see how I am. More apologies. Flicker. We’re home, but that was just part one. D helps me out of the car. If I try to do anything myself, my knees buckle and I fall. He walks me up to our apartment. Flicker.

I don’t become conscious again for a while. D tells me later that during this time I was asleep, I started choking and he had to make me stop. He also tells me that I started screaming as loud as I could and he couldn’t soothe me. He says at one point he put a pillow over my face to muffle it, and I didn’t even notice. I went right on screaming.

When I become conscious again he’s sitting on top of me. I try to sit up but he grabs my arms and pushes me right back down. He tells me to close my eyes and go to sleep. Flicker. I sit up again. I have to get out of here. He pushes me back down. Tells me to close my eyes and go to sleep. Flicker. I sit back up. He pushes me back down. Says the same thing. Flicker. I don’t know how many times this happens before it dawns on me that I’m dead. I must have died somehow. Did I take too many? The wrong kind? Did I just jump out of a window in my delirium? But I’m dead now. Flicker. I sit up. He pushes me down. Tells me to close my eyes. Is this Hell? Were all the Christians right all along? Am I in Hell now and this is my world?* Flicker. I sit up, he pushes me down, tells me to close my eyes. I start babbling about forgiveness. Flicker. I sit up, he pushes me down, tells me to close my eyes. I realize that this is Hell, and for the rest of eternity I’m going to relive the last ten seconds over and over and over again forever, and I’m tortured by the idea. All I want is to get out. This is a realization that I forget every time I sit up, right up until he tells me to close my eyes, and then I realize it again, and remember I’ve realized it a thousand times before. I can’t resist what he tells me to do, and every time he tells me to, I close my eyes again. Flicker. Up, down, close your eyes, I realize again. “This is going to go on forever…” He laughs. This only tells me I’ve figured it out.

I’m going to sit up panicking, and realize again and again and again forever that this is going to go on and on. I’ll realize a million times that this is going to keep going, and a million times more. It’ll never end. Flicker. Again and again and again. Every time it’s worse. His voice echoes. Have you ever put two mirrors facing each other and looked into the infinite reflections they produce? Once after another after another after another. That’s how I felt. That’s how he sounded. That’s what he looked like as my eyes closed again and I fell back against my pillow. Reverberating and happening again. Flicker. Again. I hear an ambulance outside. I see the lights. “Is there an ambulance out there? Is it for me? I want to look!” I try to get up, he pushes me back down. “You can’t go! You’re going to jump off the balcony!” Immediately I wonder: is that how I have to end this? Am I supposed to kill myself? Will that get me out of this infinite torture? But I’m already dead! So what would it matter? Flicker.

I don’t want to jump off the balcony, I just want to do something, ANYTHING that’s different from what’s been happening and happening and happening. “Please let me up!” I have to escape from this! “Close your eyes.” Flicker. I bolt up. He’s not on top of me anymore. He’s across the room. I jump up and try to run before it’s too late, but he’s too fast for me and even though I’m halfway through the door to the living room he’s grabbed leg and waist. I’ve gotten so far! I have to break out of this. I beg him to please let me up, please let me get out of here. I promise I won’t go anywhere. Reluctantly, he lets go and watches me. I run to the bathroom. I’m so happy I didn’t close my eyes again. I’m so happy. I make the mistake of going back into the room and lying back down, and when I wake back up, I’ve forgotten that I ever left the room. It’s all happening again. I feel my phone ringing and I take it out. D runs over to me and takes it away before I can answer it. But I’m so close, so close to making something different happen, to breaking out of the infinite mirror of events, I beg him to just let me see the phone, let me talk to whoever it is so they can get me out of it. Something dawns on me. “What time is it!?” “Will that make you feel better?” “Please let me see!” If there is time, I can’t be dead. This can’t be Hell. The same moment cannot happen forever.

It’s 7:22. Now it’s 7:23. “I’m just….I’m just….just…just tripping…..I’m just tripping! I’m just tripping!” Time is moving. It’s been three hours since the start of my trip. I’m not dead. I’m not in hell. I’m in my room. D is there helping me. I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude that I start to laugh and sob at once. I forced my way out of hell, I found my way out, I’m alive and I’m so grateful. Time is moving again. I have free will again. Oh god. It feels so good. I’m hugging D as hard as I can, I’m so happy this is over. The feeling is still there, the glitches in my brain, but I’m back in my own head and I can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not. The next three hours fly by, and I’m feeling much better. I just want to talk. I just want to relax. I don’t even want to do that again.

D tells me that he only pushed me back down onto the bed a few times. 4 or 5. The tiny number feels so impossible, and I’m not sure I can ever believe it.. I’m told that in all my flailing, I kicked A in the face. I have some nice scratches/bruises on my arm, and a big purple bruise on my right thigh. My wrists ache, and my hip hurts. I find other little bruises on accident when I touch them, but they’re not the kind you can see through your skin. I’m embarrassed more than anything, and I’m not very happy overall after this. I’ve never been so terrified in all my life, never felt worse than I did. I never wanted to understand the concept of infinity, but I do now.

I don’t think I’ll ever trip on anything with those people again, because how they handled it only sent me further into delirium. You can’t choke someone and threaten them while they’re having a bad trip, sorry. I’ve never had a bad trip before this, so it was really…..I didn’t know how to handle it. Shit, I didn’t even think I was alive and tripping anymore.

(*I’m agnostic, but I firmly believe that the Christians have got it all wrong, and they use their religion as a tool for money and power, disgusting. So my thinking that I’ve died and gone to Christian hell pretty much means that I have lost my mind.)

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 74441
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 22, 2020	Views: 5,795
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Amanitas - A. muscaria (70) : Bad Trips (6), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Small Group (2-9) (17)