The Day I Woke Up and Started Believing
Mushrooms - P. cubensis
Citation:   MSing. "The Day I Woke Up and Started Believing: An Experience with Mushrooms - P. cubensis (exp111196)". Erowid.org. Apr 8, 2019. erowid.org/exp/111196

 
DOSE:
3-4 g oral Mushrooms - P. cubensis (tea)
BODY WEIGHT: 75 kg
I want to share how my perspective of life and death, and most everything in-between, was turned upside down in over the course of only a few hours. This is my story about ingesting psilocybin mushrooms in order to heal my mind and expand my horizon.

I first ingested 3g dried cubensis as tea steeped with lemon slices. Good set and setting: on a beautiful farm with my brothers. The goal was to have a therapeutic trip, and it was my first psychedelic experience. I drank some from another cup a couple of hours in, though it was not nearly as much in the second cup, and I shared it with one of my brothers. I estimate that the total was close to 4g, and my breakthrough happened pretty much as I had my second cup, so I'm assuming it's alright to say I reached it after having had around 3g.

All my life, since I was just a little girl, I have had a great fear of losing my dad. When it happened suddenly and unexpectedly, at a time in life where he was enjoying himself and his life more than ever, looking forward to his future with the family with joy and in general just loving life... my life and my heart shattered into a million broken pieces. I had given birth to my first and only son some months prior, and it meant so much to him. I lived abroad and had done so for a few years, so we didn't see each other often. It was over three months since I last saw him. Two days since we spoke on the phone, looking forward to me and my son flying home to visit later that week. I got the phone call from my mum on the evening two days before our planned trip.

I'm raised in a Christian home (Luther-Protestant, fairly liberal) and considered myself a believer for many years. As I came into my twenties, I decided I couldn't believe anymore, because it just didn't make sense to me, and I couldn't force myself to believe. Nonetheless, I was spiritually open-minded and had thoughts of the soul or spirit living on in the afterlife, possibly reunited with loved ones, and possibly reincarnated. The reason I wrote so detailed about my dad is to make you understand how that single experience broke all that. Suddenly I just felt that there was nothing more to death than death. Bodies rot and that will be that. I felt my dad was gone forever, and certainly not lingering somewhere, able to communicate with me.

When I did the mushrooms I suddenly just knew that death is not the end. I can only describe it as looking at an empty white wall for a long time and then all of a sudden seeing a door. I might not know what's on the other side, and that's less important to me, but I just knew we were more than bodies and mind. Spirits, consciousness, souls... I don't know. In my (fairly short) trip report, the last thing I’d written was “I have reached the stage humans would call enlightenment”. Big words, but that’s where I was at that very moment.

What I concluded with, in my mind that evening, was that being born and living our lives here was just like donning a uniform and going to work. When the human form dies, it's taking the uniform off and simply going home. Maybe the 'next day', you put on a fresh uniform and 'go to work' as a new, reincarnated human? I don't know, but it felt peaceful. I didn't feel any contact with my dad, and I'm not sure he's out there, reachable, but it made it just a little bit easier to swallow.
I didn't feel any contact with my dad, and I'm not sure he's out there, reachable, but it made it just a little bit easier to swallow.


Personally, I have never really been worried about dying or what will happen after, until after I had my son and went through some periods of severe fear of death. Not for my own sake, but fear of dying so that I would leave my son alone. Maybe prematurely projecting my grief over losing my dad onto him, in my mind. I'm not worried about dying, and I don't fear it. I'm only worried about the effects on the people who love me. Regardless of what I might think about where we go when we die, the grief is still very hard. I won't miss people who die any less just because I now know in my heart that 'they' are somewhere else, to put it that way.

To conclude this, I would like to say that this was a life-altering experience that I am very glad I got to experience with my brothers. We have also done MDMA together, spending hours talking and bonding more, so we have a great relationship and I think that's part of the reason why this trip went so amazingly well. Their goal was to help me heal myself with the help of psychedelics, and that I have, to some extent, achieved. I will be doing this again, for the sake of self-growth and keeping my mental health in a good place.

Exp Year: 2017ExpID: 111196
Gender: Female 
Age at time of experience: 31
Published: Apr 8, 2019Views: 1,062
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Families (41), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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