DOSE: T+ 0:00	3 g	oral	Mushrooms	(dried)
T+ 0:00		smoked	delta-8-THC	(device)
T+ 2:30	2 g	oral	Mushrooms	(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

210 lb

I had been looking for a chance to try some kind of psychedelic substance for a while, so when the opportunity came, I gladly took it. It wasn’t so much as an opportunity, more of a professional stoner friend of mine came over to visit. Derek, who lived in the American North-East was restarting the college semester in the sunny peninsula I lived in and offered to meet up. I was pretty glad to finally see him again in person, since he isn’t much of an active person on the internet. Derek ending up bringing down about 11 grams of magic mushrooms, of which specific species I’m unsure of.

Prior to this I had only ever gotten drunk and high, mostly on Delta-8 edibles. At this point, I was a pretty active consumer of these edibles for about a year and had found that I enjoyed getting really really high. To preface, before this year-long streak of getting high basically every day started, I had only tried weed once before when I was 18 and it was a pretty weak hit out of a pipe. To make a long story short, not being wise about the proper dosage to take for the first time (in a LONG while), I drank a 100mg THC drink within a few minutes. Needless to say, it was pretty rough but I felt the experience gave me a pretty good grip on reality in an altered state of consciousness, or at least got me used to the feeling of being messed up. Anyways that’s a story for another trip report, but my friend knew this story as well, and he agreed with me that I should be ‘pretty good’ with shrooms.

So after a morning of kayaking we came home to my parent’s house and decided ‘may as well take them now’ since we had nothing else planned for the day. For reference, it was about 12:30 PM at this point. The only scale I had at home was a kitchen scale that wasn’t suited for lightweight measurements, but we used it anyway to weigh out about three grams for each of us. We discussed the best way to actually eat it, but we just ended up eating it like cavemen, no tea preparation or any attempt of hiding it into some kind of food.

At that time my friend began to play some retro video games on a console he had bought from home, while I sat on the couch and watched him. At about 30 minutes I felt the first effects. Subjective, I have no idea of the actual time but this it what it felt like to me. I felt a little nauseous, the room was brighter and my whole body felt sort of uncomfortable. I could tell my thinking was altered, but given the fact that I was actively conversing with my friend I didn’t have a moment to try and think about my own thoughts. In response to the nausea, I remember reading that eating a banana helps a lot, so I went downstairs to grab one and eat it. My physical coordination at this point was pretty good, although I did feel like I needed to slow down a little walking up and down the stairs. The banana worked, and about an hour into the trip I started seeing visuals. They were sort of underwhelming to me, but it was more like I was just actively ignoring most of them. This is to say that while there was definitely a lot visuals going on, I didn’t really notice them unless I focused on one in particular.

At this point me and my friend transitioned to playing a board game. My friend suggested working together to score the most possible points at which point I pointed at that we may as well dump out all the cards and put them together. It was really hard to take the game seriously. I could kind of tell my friend also didn’t care for the game at all. Halfway through we realized we weren’t even counting points so we just elected to go outside and swim in the pool. While playing, I had also realized that I was crying slightly, with teary eyes and runny nose. This was pretty strange to me since I didn’t feel sad or overwhelmed or anything.

Outside in the pool, we greatly enjoyed the visuals of the sun scattering through the pool, and the leaves forming shade around the backyard. I find it impossible to properly describe the visuals other than just ‘pretty cool’. Overall, it was just great spending time with my friend in that pool. We had also smoked a little bit of THC-8 out of a dab pen, on Derek’s recommendation. Since I had heard weed goes well with mushrooms from another friend, I thought it was a pretty decent idea, though to be honest I don’t think I really even noticed if they added anything to the trip. Another hour had passed with us in the pool, so at this point it felt like 2 hours and 30 minutes since the start of the trip. At this point we got out the pool and decided to make dinner. The plan we ended up coming up with was to take a further 2 grams of mushrooms for the ‘full experience’ (Derek had determined that I was ready for it) and then cook a skirt steak and eat that together.

So we get out the pool and go upstairs to take some more of the Magic Mushrooms, afterwards we both showered and get back outside to the grill the steak. During this entire time, even if I felt a little uncoordinated and trippy, I certainly felt completely sober. I felt as if I could do basically anything I could normally do, so long as I just focused a little more than usual. Grilling the steak goes off without a hitch, a perfect medium-well.

This is when the fun part of the trip ended. We took the steak inside to cut it, because a skirt steak is quite tough, the best way to eat it is to slice it against the grain and serve the sliced steak. A sort of ‘steak fingers’ if you will. So I put the steak down on the cutting board and bust out the knife, I slice. It’s a tough steak, it takes some effort to get through those fibers. I slice again, and probably once before. For some reason, this was really hard for me to do. Exhausting even. I looked up at Derek, thinking ‘I bet he’s got a better grip right now, I should ask him to cut the steak for me.’

Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. I jolted up. I’m basically shouting as I come to ‘What the fuck just happened?’ My parents and Derek are both in front of me asking if I’m okay. My mom is asking me what I took. My first instinct was to say ‘Nothing’, but after getting the words out of my mouth I realized that I couldn’t really play it cool this time. I admitted to taking Magic Mushrooms. Well, that wasn’t really my concern right now, my head was killing me. Aching and burning, the back of my head was wet. I had fallen backwards and hit my head against the countertop.

Luckily my parents also didn’t care much about me taking Magic Mushrooms in the moment. In retrospect, I got really lucky that night. I didn’t get concussed or anything and only had a small nick on the back of my head (I had hit a sharp corner on the way down to the floor). My mom took me to the bathroom to put on a bandage on and spray some H2O2 on the wound, and then sat me down in the kitchen chair. In those moments of getting patched up, all I was really thinking about was ‘God I hope my dad isn’t grilling Derek in the other room for getting his son all fucked up on drugs.’ Thankfully it was the complete opposite, he checked to make sure he was doing fine and even cut the rest of the steak. Understandably Derek had lost his appetite at this point.

I was back in the kitchen, just sitting in a chair trying to relax. At this point it still wasn’t really clear how hurt I was so my parents just had me linger around to make sure I didn’t start passing out or something like that. After checking for concussion symptoms, I was finally left alone for a moment. Derek was silent, feeling pretty distraught and guilty. I don’t blame him since I would have felt the exact same way. I had started having an emotional moment at this point, but while externally I was crying and sobbing into a tissue, internally I felt at peace. My mind was almost in pure analytical state.

One of the first thoughts I had sitting in that chair was ‘Wait a second, am I going to die like this?’ I thought about my life leading up to that moment, especially of my close friends that I hadn’t seen in person in years. I didn’t feel sad or angry, but rather just a sort of bittersweet melancholy. All my life I had imagined in moments of depression that I’d die with a ton of regrets. But in this Psilocybin-induced state of apparent near death, I had surprisingly thought the opposite. I thought; ‘Hey you know what? It wasn’t too bad. My life could have been a lot worse.’

Things seemed so clear to me in that moment. If I don’t like getting high every night, why don’t I just quit? If I want to go airsofting, why don’t I just go this weekend, instead of putting it off for over three years after buying my own gear and never using it. Why don’t I take the gym seriously instead of complaining about being unfit all the time? Why don’t I just go to that strange Italian deli I see every day, instead of fanaticizing about what’s inside every day? Why do I even have anxiety in public if I look like everyone else anyway?

I must have a trillion thoughts in that chair. It was like I was being interrogated by myself. Eventually I realized that I in fact, will probably not die tonight. I was glad for the chance to be on Earth. To be a dumb little human on Earth in our silly civilizations. I realized that I was a person just like everyone else. A person who can do things. I know it seems obvious to say, but I truly realized that in that moment, and the idea was so profound to me.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. I had estimated that about four hours had passed since we first started the trip, but it was actually nearly midnight by the time me and my friend got back upstairs. We sat down on the couch and just talked for a while. The whole time I recall saying ‘That’s Crazy.’ Over and over again, commenting on how life itself was crazy. The fact that the universe even exists, and that we happen to live in a very comfortable era, an achievement that exists because of the hard labor of countless souls before us. It was insane to realize that countless people had literally died for me and my comfort. Millions and men and women had toiled to make the world a better place, piece by piece.

About a month had passed since then. I made sure to let Derek know the next day that I was quite glad for the experience he helped give me. I was glad to have him as a friend and he was welcome back anytime. I did in fact go airsofting, and I did in fact go to that deli. To be honest, the trip didn’t actually leave me as productive as I was hoping to be afterwards, but what it did was destroy any lingering suicidal thoughts I had. I’ve always had a minor depression since middle school, and though it had never even come close to suicide before, the constant idea of ‘well I could always just shoot myself’ was messing up my life quite a bit. Since the trip, I don’t have those thoughts anymore. Even in a stressful moment, my giving up thought in my mind wasn’t ‘Fuck this I’ll just kill myself’ it was ‘Fuck this, I’ll just do it tomorrow.’ I’ve also managed to totally cold turkey weed, and even driving by my smoke shop every day, I don’t get the urge to relapse at all.

I would not call my experience a bad trip in the traditional sense that I was stuck in some anxiety-inducing thought loop. I actually ended up getting exactly what I wanted out of a mushroom trip, that being a fresh new perspective on life. Even after busting my head, I didn’t feel too anxious, just calm and mostly: myself. In hindsight, I don't actually know why I passed out, but I'm fairly certain I simply held my breath to focus on cutting the steak, and forgot that I was even holding my breath, thus passing out.

Exp Year: 2023	ExpID: 117525
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Mar 2, 2025	Views: 15
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Mushrooms (39) : General (1), First Times (2), Difficult Experiences (5), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Glowing Experiences (4), Families (41), Nature / Outdoors (23), Guides / Sitters (39), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Small Group (2-9) (17)