DOSE:

5.0 g

oral

Amanitas - A. muscaria

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

This was my first bad trip. I've been impressed before by the power of some substances, unnerved by others (like Salvia), but I had yet to have considered any of it 'bad.' I'll try not to sound like I'm complaining too much, but this was the first in a relatively long line of substances that scared me significantly. The silly thing is, though, 5 grams was supposed to be a dose that would test the potency of the mushrooms I had, to see if I would need to take more. I was hoping and expecting to feel something significant with it, but it was supposed to be pretty manageable.

I ate about 3/4 of a medium cap and a few bites of a stem at around 9 p.m. Maybe one hour after I ate the shrooms, I started to get a weird feeling in my head. This was the onset, and it quickly went up from there. I layed in my bed, expecting perhaps nausea or the 'dreamy/sedative' state. After a bit, I was marvelling that I could still converse a little with some of the people in my room watching TV, because I was the very highest I've ever been. I got stuck in a very intense time loop, where I would come to realize that I was in a loop, and that realization would then become part of the loop. Then I started to get completely dissociated from my senses. I don't know how long it took me to get a grip and realize I was in a really bad state; all my sensory input was confused.

What I was seeing, hearing, and touching were in disagreement. I don't know if I was having full-blown hallucinations, visual and/or auditory. I realized that I had no idea of what was happening in this state of zero self-awareness and any number of things could be occuring: someone could be trying to shake me awake, I could be in an ambulance, on the way to the hospital, or I could just be walking around the woods. I thought that I had locked myself up in a tiny attic somewhere. It also occured to me that I might be dead and lost to this insane reality forever. This scared the shit out of me, and I said in my little world something like, 'Somebody help, everything's out of control, and i can't handle this anymore.'

My roommate was watching TV and he said later that I was just laying in bed, trembling, and I may have mumbled something. He said that he wasn't too worried about me, but I'm glad he didn't get worried and call 9-11, actually. I was in my bed, in fact, struggling to bring reality back together for what seemed like forever. I could feel my pillow under me (with a massive puddle of drool on it), and I just held on to that belief, hoping it was the one real thing no matter what my hearing or sight tried to convince me of, and come back down. One of my friends came in the room, and either I was just getting a grasp again, or he brought me around, but everything swam back together. I could see him and talk to him, and there is no describing the relief and 'whew' feeling I got.

I was somewhat suspicious and in disbelief that this was real and things were in control again--if my talking to him turned out to be another hallucination, I think I would have just given up--but he confirmed for me that I was saying what I in fact thought I said. I was still scared about my ability to stay grounded like this, and I asked him if he could make sure that he or someone stayed around. I couldn't really describe my out-of-body experience too well, but it was obvious that something was wrong because I couldn't stop shaking. They told me to try to stop shaking and I couldn't; I couldn't really feel that I was, in fact.

I figured that I had been out of it for about 45 minutes or so. The drug lasted well into three in the morning, but I was able to keep better tabs on it then before. I spent most of the time in my bed, except when I got up to go to the bathroom (I decided that I would definitely NOT be saving my piss). I would feel some senses start to drift, like hearing or touch, and I would pounce on it before it got out of control. Sight didn't really get crazy for the rest of the night, except for a little blurring and things looking off-color. One of my friends put my blanket over me because I was shaking, covering my head, and the sensory deprivation alarmed me so that I had to poke my head out. I'm pretty sure that at one point there was no one in the room with me (I think they went to buy booze or something) and I got scared that I'd slipped away again.

I had one weird little blackout. I was trying to scratch an itch on my face, but my hand was moving really slowly and it was taking a lot of effort. Then all of a sudden everything sped up and I shoved my hand into my face. I sat up, all of a sudden feeling sober (however, this was the 'eye of the storm,' because it came back again, though not as strong). When I looked up, the person who was standing near my bed had moved to a chair where my friend had been sitting and had long since vacated, I suppose. I missed all of this... whoa, blackout.

I finally went to sleep finally at 4 a.m. or so, thinking about how fucking horrible and terrifiying that trip had been. I didn't experience any euphoria, and I wouldn't really call that sensory confusion synesthesia--it was more of a distinct confliction than a mixing of the senses. Overall, it wasn't much fun and it wasn't what I was expecting with that dosage and that mushroom. I'm probably crazy to consider trying it again, but I think maybe one-fourth that amount might be a reasonable working dose. It may be that I have very potent amanitas in my possession, or that I am a particularly sensitive individual to muscimol, or both. I realize now that I shouldn't have jumped in so deep with a substance still so obscure and in need of more research. It's a good eye-opener for future exploration, so I won't fuck up even worse and die.

-Be more careful than you think you should with this-

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 14778
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 22, 2002	Views: 39,407
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Amanitas - A. muscaria (70) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Bad Trips (6), Difficult Experiences (5), First Times (2)