DOSE:

3.5 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

CHAPTER 1- The Beginning

It started off like any other trip, a journey through the unknown, a complete mind and body experience like no other, a surreal mosaic of distortions and manipulations of the real world. Thoughts and reasons fly through the mind in all directions, all at once but seem so simple to reason and to come up with a solution that makes sense. But on this particular day, the madness crept from all fronts and led to a downward spiral of psychedelic pandemonium. All seemed hopeless and the only words that I could come to reason with were utter madness.

My friend Dave and I sat in the small, confined dorm room preparing our usual ritual before starting our trip. We laid out the shrooms divided up evenly on the table surrounded by cartons of orange juice (to enhance the trip), slices of bread and peanut butter. Before eating the enchanting fungus, I picked up the cap and realized that these boomers we had in our possession were different in color and texture than anything I’ve ever eaten before. The cap was quite large with a rough texture and a bluish purple tint on the outer rim of the cap. This was first time attempting to eat an 1/8 to my head but the confidence in my tolerance didn’t think of the consequences to come.

I made a peanut butter and mushroom sandwich with the entire 1/8 overflowing off the bread. I stuffed it down my throat to surpass the unbearable acquired taste boomers have and pounded down the orange juice to wash the remains down to my stomach. It was only a matter of time before these drugs took effect. Dave and I waited around for a few minutes for our colleagues to join us in the festivities, then took a drive to the nearby mountain across the street from the school to start our trip. Not even ten minutes after taking the shrooms, Dave and I started feeling them take hold in our stomachs, so much faster than any other time eating shrooms. Not thinking too much about it at the time we headed to the mountain.

CHAPTER 2- The Mountain

The five of us walked up and around the mountain for about a mile and found a secluded spot to trip. The rest of the group ate the shrooms once we got on the mountain, but Dave and I started tripping right away. It was only a matter of time where the drug took hold of us all and we ended up being scattered around our area in search of things that intrigued our imagination. I found this boulder on the ground surrounded by pine trees. A coat of soft moss swallowed the rock. I found it to look very comfortable, so I sat on the luxurious rock, in an Indian style position and gazed off into my own realm of thought. I felt relaxed at first, knowing my surroundings and expectations but after sitting on the rock staring off into nothing, soon everything around me as well as my colleagues started to fall apart.

I looked at my hands and saw a liquid swirling clockwise through my veins and my skin, I blinked twice and looked up to see where everyone was and it looked as if they were miles away and I was alone on a mossy rock. In past experiences of eating mush, I’ve felt a change in perception and appreciation for things that many 'normal' people wouldn’t understand, but never have I experienced visuals that looked so real than the sights I saw this day. While waiting for my friends to return, I just stayed on the rock, as if a body of water infested with man-eating sharks surrounded me. The moss changed and morphed into different patterns on the rock and I was amazed by what my eyes were actually seeing.

When everyone regrouped something just went wrong. We didn’t know what it was; an indescribable feeling that flowed through us as if we were one. We knew we had to get off this mountain. I didn’t ask questions to what exactly was wrong. Everyone was feeling the mushrooms take over our minds and bodies and we couldn’t do anything about it. No turning back. In a disoriented fashion we started walking back down the mountain into an unknown and unpredictable world. Hikers walking up and down the mountain, with dogs and kids, something a person on shrooms should never see in the depths of a complete 'acid trip.' Too unpredictable.

CHAPTER 3- What’s Next?

Walking down the path was when the visuals 'really' took hold of my mind. The trees and the path were changing in size and shape. I felt dizzy and uncomfortable due to the drastic changes and morphing of my surroundings. My stomach was vibrating at a rapid pace. I could feel the effects in my body flow through me like blood, making me feel nauseous. The walk down the mountain was a task in itself but was nothing compared to what was to come. But at the time I was thinking to myself, 'What’s next?'
As we made it to the bottom of the mountain we approached the road to cross onto campus. Something was different. Nothing seemed real. The clouds engulfed the sun and seemed to surround the campus like there was a thunderstorm coming, the clouds moved rapidly circling around us, but everything else seemed to be in slow motion. Cars were moving down the road so slow, I couldn’t tell if was real and did not want to get hit by a car that seemed to hardly be moving. Now was the time when we couldn’t tell the difference between the surreal and reality, which scared the hell out of us.

Once we got onto campus, one of my colleagues completely lost it. The thoughts of dying crossed his mind, so he proceeded to call 911 to get help. The one thing one person should not do is call 911 in the depths of tripping, it freaks people out. From there, I decided I had to get away from the group or I knew the trip would take a sharp turn for the worse. I knew the only way to get through this was to go off alone and find something positive to save the trip as well as myself. Unfortunately, I was in the prime of my trip and the word 'confusion' gave it a whole new meaning.

CHAPTER 4- Tripping Madness

I was fortunate that the campus was quiet and no one was in my room. In a drunk-like state I stumbled to my dorm building door, fished around in my pockets looking for a key to enter the building, but they were nowhere to be found. At this time I had to go to the bathroom, but in my condition it was a lot easier said than done. I tried calling my room to see if anyone was around to open the door but my luck was running out. My mind was in a state of total confusion. I kept telling myself who I was, where I went to school, my family members and friends to keep my sanity. I repeated over and over, 'this is going to end, this is going to end.' But even I didn’t know what to expect. This was something new to me and being unprepared made my mind unsure of what was real and what was my imagination. Since I was out of ideas to gain access into the building, I proceeded to secrete my waste in the corner on the wall as well as the call box, due to the frustration of being unable to remember anyone’s extension to let me in. As I was relieving myself I heard an echo of whispers creep upon me.

Paranoia kicked in and I turned quickly to see if anyone was around. No one was there. I proceeded again to urinate on the call box, and the whispers continued. The sounds of children laughing entered my right ear and out the other, with the echoes ringing in my head. This frightened me quite a bit, so I decided to hang around the building hoping someone would come around to open the door. I lit up and smoked a cigarette to calm myself down. I looked around trying to find interesting things to make the best of this trip. The edges of the buildings surrounding me had a bright, eccentric glow to them. The clouds and trees were melting like the world was going to end, but ironically this sight entertained me. Was I gaining an understanding to my perceptions? Was I dreaming? Was this ever going to end? Questions started to flow through my brain, but I did not have the answers.

While puffing down my cigarette, I saw this girl that I knew of walking by, but something was awkward about her presence. She walked passed me in slow motion, with a halo of light surrounding her like she was an angelic figure. I couldn’t tell if she was walking really slow or floating past me. She had an euphoric smile that didn’t change the whole time. Her eyes stared right at me as my eyes were laid upon her. There was deadly silence through everything and I just stood in amazement. Just as she was out of my sight, a light bulb went off in my head. A revelation almost. I ran down the stairs around my dorm and used an alternate door to access into the building. Why I didn’t think of this sooner, before making a complete fool of myself by peeing on the call box, is a mystery. I rushed up the stairs in my building and burst through my door, entering the dark common room. I went straight to my room and climbed into my bed. This was where the madness took hold of me. For going to my room, by myself, during the peak of the trip, was the worst decision to make.

CHAPTER 5- Panic Room

Once I was on the bed, I slipped my feet under the covers. Sheer horror ran through my entire body. My feet fell into a never-ending nothingness. It felt like a black hole engulfed my entire lower body. I ripped the sheets right off me and curled into a ball at the head of the bed. I closed my eyes for a brief moment and when I opened them, I observed my surroundings. Everything in the room was changing in size and shape. Pictures and posters all over the room were melting and morphing, changing in emotion as if they were alive. My eyes changed their perception every second. I looked across the room on my roommate’s side and it seemed like his desk was a lifetime away, and in the blink of an eye it was so close to me. My roommate had a white fur sheet as a curtain for the bed. The white hairs grew and shrunk in size, almost as if the fur was alive and breathing. There was a poster on my window for a marijuana debate at my school. It had a picture of the chief editor of High Times on one side, and an ex-CIA agent on the other side and a marijuana leaf in the middle. I stared at the CIA agent, and I noticed he was looking right at me. His face was morphing and melting and his smile transformed into a look of anger. I panicked for a moment and ripped the shade down to cover the poster.

On my door there is a shrooming poster called 'The Habit,' a tripped out version of 'The Hobbit.' In the center lies a wizard stoned out of its mind with three elves chilling on a mossy patch surrounded by marijuana leaves and mushrooms. One of the elves is holding a pipe, and the smoke rises up to form a path to a mushroom castle. On top left of the poster is a moon blowing smoke and on the right is a Sun blowing smoke. In between the sun and moon is a blood shot eye that stares out to the viewer. The smoke from the pipe began to rise in a circular motion to the mushroom castle in a 3-D effect. The eye’s bloodshot veins were altering in thickness and the sun and moon’s facial expressions changed dramatically. The poster in its entirety had a bright glow to it with a strobe-like effect. Gazing into the poster was a bizarre but intriguing experience.

While in the depths of my trip, I was interrupted by the ring of the telephone. I was in no state to speak to anyone but I had the urge to reach down from my bed and grab the phone off the desk. As I was reaching down, the phone seemed to slip further and further away from my hands. I kept reaching for it, but it was pulling away from me. I almost fell off my bed trying to grab the damn thing hanging by my feet and finally grabbed hold of it. It was a friend of mine I believe, but I was unsure because the voice coming out of the receiver was too distorted and made no sense to me. I hung up the phone, not even saying goodbye and laid in my bed staring off into the ceiling. After lying on my bed soaking in all the visuals around, the door opened. In an instant I grabbed the covers and pulled them over me. Why? I do not know. It was my suite mate. He asked me if I was tripping today and I quickly responded with No, and politely asked him to shut the door. I waited for a few minutes, jumped out of bed and proceeded into the bathroom.

CHAPTER 6- Peaking

As I entered the dark lit commode, the only source of light was a devilish red bulb, setting a nightmarish scene. I slowly walked into the stall, which was normally small but when I shut the door It looked as if the stall was a never-ending hall and I was sitting on the toilet in the corner of the chamber. My eyes were blinking non-stop as I started to breathe heavy and completely lose control of my thoughts. Sitting on the toilet, I felt nauseous and my stomach vibrated profusely, I jumped out of the stall and approached the mirror. I washed water over my face, to cool me down and noticed my eyes were almost completely black due to being so dilated. I stared into the reflection of my own horror, a misconception of reality and more of nightmare I couldn’t escape from. For the next hour I had a repetition of actions that repeated itself in large escapade of deja-vu. Back and forth from my bedroom to the bathroom stall, over to the sink and back in to my bedroom and so forth. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was thinking, but I did have a feeling of fear, I was aware of that much. It was an undying fear, which I wanted to end so badly. What could I do to escape this world?

CHAPTER 7- Revelation

After aimless confusion I decided to stick my fingers down my throat to regurgitate and end the madness. After I threw up I was still tripping, but I did feel a little better. I decided to go outside for a cigarette. As I lit up the stoge, a friend of mine approached me. He was the first person, after I was separated from my group that I held an intellectual and sane conversation with. Finally, A fucking revelation! There was just one thing different. As I was conversing with my colleague, I noticed his face looked like a glob of clay, bordered with blurry edges, shifting and changing around his entire face. I didn’t reveal to him that I was still tripping and that his eyes were completely filled with blackness. I finally had control over what I was seeing and was comfortable enough to hold a conversation, so I decided to keep quiet about my experiences and bullshit with him till I was finished with my cigarette.

I could feel myself starting to come down, so I headed up to Dave’s room to see if everyone was there and to explain the madness to them. As I ran up the hill to his dorm, I saw his suite-mate come outside with an emotionless, pale face. I asked him what was wrong right away. He asked me, 'Dave took anything today?' I told him that we ate mushrooms today and everything went downhill. Dave’s suite-mate explained to me that Dave got back to the room, locked himself in and was going completely insane. About how he freaked him out, and how he was thinking about calling 911 because he had no idea what to do. I calmed him down and told him everything was going to be okay. I went into the room, ran up the stairs and there was Dave. He had a look that I can’t even begin to describe. So confused and scared. He was walking back and forth repeating, 'what the fuck is going on, what the hell was that.' I responded with a look of silence, but he could read exactly what I was thinking by the expression of my face.

We sat in his room and collected our thoughts and let the drug release itself from our bodies. The trip was over, no more madness. A sigh of relief washed over me like a light breeze. I knew who I was, where I was and most importantly that I was okay. We sat there shell-shocked by the events that took place today. Something we will never forget. Never.

I guess I could have used this experience as reason never to trip on anything ever again. But I beg to differ. Looking back on this experience showed me how to face my worst fears and inevitably learn to control them. Of course I don’t think I will be eating an entire 1/8 of shrooms all at once; but if I ever did, I would be ready for it this time. I have eaten, and enjoyed mushrooms many times after that memorable day. A day I will never be able to understand, and never forget.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 14304
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Mar 25, 2005	Views: 13,563
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Mushrooms (39) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Difficult Experiences (5)