DOSE: T+ 0:00	15 g	oral	Amanitas	(tea)
T+ 0:30		oral	Ondansetron

BODY WEIGHT:

175 lb

Conversations with the Universe on A. Muscaria

Consuming 15 grams of Amanita Muscaria ranks among the most intense experiences of my life. While being a challenging and intense experience, it was very rewarding and helped me answer some difficult questions I had. I went into the experience without expectations or goals other than to experience what the mushroom had to offer. With that being said, I was blown away by how therapeutic the whole experience turned out for me considering my lack of preparation. This experience helped me better understand death and the purpose of life. It also gave me some intense and unpleasant effects that made it clear that consuming larger amounts of Amanita Muscaria is not something to take lightly.

I bought 15 grams of Amanita Muscaria mushrooms online from a seller based out of Minnesota. The mushrooms themselves were picked in Alaska. There is a common misconception that these mushrooms are poisonous, even though humans have been consuming them for thousands of years. I read that the mushrooms needed to be processed to convert the ibotenic acid to muscimol in order to avoid some potential negative effects. I have heard of this conversion process being done through a variety of different means, like placing the mushrooms in milk or by drinking the urine of someone willing to eat them raw. I opted for the more modern method of boiling them in water with a lemon juice-based solution with a pH of 2.7.

The length of time that they are boiled in the solution determines the amount of ibotenic acid that is converted over to muscimol. I read that converting the ibotenic acid to muscimol would eliminate some of the more “profound” elements of the experience, so I opted to convert 30% of the ibotenic acid to Muscimol. A 30% conversion is the bare minimum from what I read to prevent nausea while allowing for more effects. While potency can range widely, I read that 15 grams of mushrooms would constitute a heroic dose. I only bought 15 grams so I figured that going with the heroic dose would give me the biggest bang for my buck.

After about 45 minutes of boiling the mushrooms, I strained them with cheesecloth and poured all of the liquid from the pot into a cup, discarding the mushrooms themselves. The mixture had a horrendous smell but wasn’t too bad on the taste buds due to the lemon juice in it. I did gag once or twice but put the mixture down without much of an issue. Almost immediately I started feeling stomach nausea. I sat down on the couch and played video games, expecting the effects to take up to an hour or so to kick in. Thirty minutes in, I needed to take a Zofran to control some of the stomach nausea I was experiencing. By the time I hit the hour mark I was starting to feel drunk. It was harder to focus on my game and my balance was off. The stomach nausea also went away and I started making some ridiculous comments to others in the room and became very intoxicated.

A pulse was beating in my head like a metronome that would continue throughout the experience, getting faster and faster as time went on. This pulse gave me an intense urge to dance and act crazy, though it didn’t necessarily feel good to move around. I began frequently urinating in intervals of 5 minutes, which would continue throughout the entire experience. By this time I was belligerent and was saying some crazy stuff to others in the room. By the time I hit the 2-hour mark, the rhythm had greatly increased and I felt the drunkenness turning into something far more intense and psychedelic. I knew that something crazy was coming and moved into bed to prepare for it.

I put in earphones and turned on some music while hallucinations began. I didn’t see shapes or anything like that appearing before my eyes. It was very dissociative, and I felt like I was now somehow partially separated from my body. I started to see what I understood to be my entire life passing before my eyes. At the end of each cycle, I would die and feel my consciousness move on. This cycle repeated itself over and over again at faster and faster intervals. I tried to narrate what I experiencing to my wife, but couldn’t quite put the words to the experience. I reached the point where I was no longer aware of my body and felt separate from it.

Immersed in total blackness, I realized that I had died and faded away into nothingness. I started having a conversation with someone I initially to be the creator of the universe. The creator explained that when we die our consciousness disassociates from our bodies and slowly fades into peace and non-existence. I felt my consciousness fade and the beautiful peace come over me. The creator explained to me that many people would kill themselves immediately if they knew how much peace they could find in death. This did not mean that life wasn’t worth living, the creator explained. It was up to me to make life an experience worth living.

The creator explained that my own personal happiness was the most important thing. Family, religion, and other obligations were not supposed to take any precedence over my own happiness and should be tools used to increase my own happiness. The realization that I would fade into non-existence when I die made the pointlessness of my former faith in the Mormon church became abundantly clear. I had made large sacrifices throughout my life in hopes of going to non-existent heaven with my family. The creator explained that my sacrifices were not making me any happier and that my decision to leave the church with my family was necessary to be the best and most authentic version of myself.

Other things were taught to me but I can’t remember any of them, due to the chaos that soon started to creep into my thoughts. My perception of time completely went out the window and I began to feel like I was trapped in endless time loops. I made the mistake of trying to fight against these time loops and desperately tried to escape them. It wasn’t until I realized that I needed to submit to them that I was finally able to escape into sleep after what felt like hours of effort. The sleep felt incredibly deep and I can’t remember dreaming at all. My alarm woke me up at 4:30 AM, and I felt refreshed and ready to take on the world. As I took the 2.5-hour drive to work, I was feeling both anxious and amazed about what I had experienced the night before. For the first couple of days after I felt a little traumatized by the experience and it wasn’t until I could process it all with my wife that I was able to accept the experience for what it was.

The trip on the Fly Agaric Mushroom wasn’t a bad trip, because I really don’t think there is such a thing. The negative aspects of the experience were largely due to me being wholly unprepared for a “heroic dose”. I probably should have started with half of the amount that I took, or mentally prepared for a serious psychedelic journey. I can understand why this mushroom was used by people in shamanic experiences for thousands of years. It really does have the power to unlock parts of your mind. However, I don’t think it is magical or supernatural in any way. All of the things it taught me were things I already had floating around in my mind. It just organized those thoughts and presented them to me in a way that was extremely impactful. This “creator” that I had a conversation with presented itself as the universe in its entirety. I don’t think it matters if a creator exists, but it was beautiful to think of the creator as the universe itself, which is something we are part of and will return to when we die. A heroic dose of Amanita Muscaria should be approached with reverence and caution. It was a life-changing experience, but not one that I feel the need to repeat anytime soon.

Exp Year: 2022	ExpID: 116872
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Jan 3, 2023	Views: 854
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Amanitas - A. muscaria (70) : Entities / Beings (37), First Times (2), Unknown Context (20)