BODY WEIGHT:

70 kg

Pear-Shaped Puffball

This a slight re-edit of my original report on a forum.

After too little sleep I went for a stroll through the woods on Sunday, the third of October 1999. I collected a few fungi. There had been a lot of rain for the previous month. There were more Pear-Shaped Puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme) on some shallowly-buried pieces of wood than you could shake an easily shaken stick at. So I collected a few handfuls. When I got home I sorted out the very young ones and rejected those older individuals whose flesh had yellowed or greyed. The books I have suggested that all the true Puffballs found in the UK are perfectly safe to eat when young. Only in the days after did I find one that stated that L. pyriforme is toxic though most books had it as edible.

If I had known what would happen I would have weighed them. I think there were between 20 and 30 small ones. I cut them into 1cm thick slices and fried them in about 1cm depth of olive oil. They were about 2cm depth in a 12cm pan. When they had gone pale brown, and the tiniest were crispy I put them on some tissue paper to drain. I ate them at about 6 o'clock in the evening and then had a butterbean curry with rice almost immediately afterwards. Some had a mild bitterness, but certainly not objectionable. I had the same unnatural feeling of well-fedness afterwards that I have noticed from the Giant Puffball. Two hours later I noticed some discomfort of the indigestion kind. Two more hours and I started belching and farting quite dramatically and noticed a pronounced mental stimulation. I made a cold infusion of a teaspoonful of ginger and after an hour steeping I drank a few sips of it every few hours. This relieved the griping pains associated with the flatulence but did not seem to reduce the volume of gas produced.

I didn't notice the fact that I should have been knackered from too little sleep and a long ramble in the woods. At half past midnight I retired to bed. I still did not feel sleepy but fell asleep immediately. And dreamed. It was of a different quality to the dream stimulation of either Calea or Wild Lettuce, though I don't know how to describe that difference. The dreams were hectic, intense, complex, of incredibly varied content and apparently constant throughout the night. I woke at regular intervals, always feeling perfectly awake instantly. At 3.45 in the morning I noticed that my hearing had become incredibly acute and that I could hear the cars on the motorway clearly, and mice scrabbling somewhere. The sounds were not loud or painful. I did not notice any echoes or voices though for a while I did hear a high whistle for which I could not account. I also noticed patterns behind my eyelids. I woke again at 9.15 in the morning. My stool was loose, explosive, foul-smelling but not painful. I was feeling refreshed and lively so I had a bath. I noticed I was still seeing colours enhanced and patterns more patterned. I was also delighted by the flow and ripple of the water. I then lay down for a few minutes to dry out. I woke again several times before finally rising at 1.45 in the afternoon. I still had some enhancement of colour, pattern and hearing for several hours.

Over the next few days I felt quite fragile and had a persistent headache. I also appeared incapable of communicating with people without being nasty to them. I should have stayed in a darkened room with a good book. The indigestion could have been due to the full stomach. After five days I felt a lot better in every way though I was still not as I was before. I would not repeat this experience because of the nasty hangover nor could I recommend it to anyone. I didn't choose to have this intense oneirogenic (dream-provoking) experience, it was a complete mistake. I am glad to have had the experience, it was fascinating and I was reasonably sure that I wasn't going to die.

When I first reported this experience some commenters remarked that my experience must have been suggestion and placebo because Ott had 'proved' that the Mexican puffballs had no effect. My answers to this are;
My preparation was quite different from Ott's.
It is easy to mistake one puffball for another, sometimes the original identity or preparation of a sacrament can be lost.
I was not expecting anything to happen as I was just eating puffballs as a culinary delicacy.
If that was suggestion these puffballs contain a powerful suggestion-enhancer.

Exp Year: 1999	ExpID: 102972
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 35
Published: May 20, 2020	Views: 939
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Various (136), Dreams (85) : Multi-Day Experience (13), What Was in That? (26), Not Applicable (38)