DOSE:

3.5 g

oral

Mushrooms

(edible / food)

BODY WEIGHT:

137 lb

I can honestly say that today has been the greatest day of my life. In only a 12-hour period of time I've deeply felt every emotion, from complete joy to helpless sorrow. The intensity of my trip today is not even remotely comparable to past experiences. Not only was the trip amazing, everything that happened throughout the day worked to enhance the experience by forcing me to think about the purpose of life, the presence of evil in our world, and what exactly it is that is leading my life.

It was 11:30 a.m. when I ate my jack-o-lantern chocolate bar. I was with my best friend C, who was also shrooming, and a good friend B, who was not shrooming and was driving C's mom's Mountaineer. We were headed up to Asheville for the day. It was overcast and the temperature today was unseasonably warm. C and I both are somewhat experienced with psychedelics and we were enjoying the excitement of the period of time after ingesting the shrooms before they kick in. All of us were in a really good mood, and we were just chatting about different things while listening to a Moe cd. After 20 minutes I was feeling the extremely faint first signs of the shrooms, although barely detectable. I was feeling a little bit nauseated and quite relaxed. About 20 minutes later it was starting to kick in.

The 'perma-grin' was definitely setting in and the giddiness was as well. There seemed to be humor in everything like the fact that I was alone in the back seat - it seemed like there should be someone sitting next to me, and I found this rather amusing. Laughing was inevitable of course and felt so good. My favorite Moe song, Timmy Tucker, was playing at that time and I was really into it as I had my eyes glued on the side window. The meadows, trees, clouds, grass, and everything outside was indescribably beautiful, with colors becoming increasingly vivid and bright. I couldn't take my eyes off the trees. Each was so different from the rest, and the lines and symmetry of the trees put me in awe.

I began to think about how much of a shame it is that we don't take the time to just appreciate all of nature's beauty; all too often we take it for granted since it is always there, always surrounding us, and it's ironic that the most beautiful things are right there before our eyes but in this society it's so easy to overlook them, and we destroy it - this irreplaceable gift to us - for our own greed.

Just then I snapped out of this train of thought and began getting rather squirmy. There were so many things I wanted to do at that point, so many things worthy of looking at and I couldn't decide just what to focus my attention on. By this time, the cd was over, and I was assigned the task of putting the cd back and picking out another one. I managed to find the cd case and put the Moe cd back in its slot, but I sort of had forgotten what I was supposed to be doing. So many thoughts were pouring into my mind and finding a cd seemed to require way too much focus.

B and C reminded me, and to humor them I started flipping the pages, 2 or 3 at the time. I wasn't even looking at the cd's! C turned around and started cracking up. We all started laughing uncontrollably and C finally got a cd playing. For some reason I decided that the roof of the car would be a good thing to focus on right then. I laid back and as I was staring I started seeing gorgeous patterns of spectacular colors and shapes all morphing and swaying to the beat of the music. It was breathtaking. Suddenly, the roof of the car started getting higher and higher until it was about 10 feet high! I couldn't believe what was happening and I vocalized my disbelief to the others.

They, of course, found this to be hilarious. I kept thinking about how funny it was that B wasn't tripping. This was, by the way, her first time ever even being around people on shrooms. I knew that this was going to be a very memorable experience for her too. I wasn't feeling too talkative, and it seemed like talking would take me out of my own little world so I just remained quiet for the next 30 minutes or so. As I was sitting, moving around to become more comfortable, my seatbelt kept locking up and I couldn't get it to stop locking! I started to panic, honestly believing the seatbelt was attacking me! I quickly unbuckled it and slid over to the middle back seat.

I was so glad to be freed from the confinement of the seatbelt! Although I thought I told B and C about it, apparently it was only an internal dialogue of sorts because they wouldn't find out about the attack of the seatbelt until later. Whenever someone would talk, it seemed so odd to me, the sounds of the words were so foreign. It seemed amazing that these vibrations from our vocal chords contain meaning and allow us to convey our thoughts to one another. I began to marvel at the idea of communication and how miserable life would be without it - after all, it's communication that separates us from the other species we share this planet with.

I started thinking about God and his ways of communicating with us. I believe God put magic mushrooms on this earth as a way of communicating with us. What we take away from a shrooming experience is a greater appreciation for nature, the people around us, and the realization that love is the center of everything - it is the purpose of life. God wants us to love Him, each other, and everything in general. Shrooms allow us to see this and to get a better understanding of Him and the way we should be living our lives. I was having so many epiphanies at the time.

I decided I wanted to switch gears just then and turned around facing the back of the car staring out the back windshield. By this time, I was tripping very hard. It seemed I couldn't stop moving my eyes around, like the mad hatter on Alice in Wonderland. This made me laugh as his image popped into my head. As I was staring out the back windshield, I was having some crazy hallucinations. The trees seemed to be swelling and shrinking back while simultaneously swaying. It was really as if they were alive and breathing. There were bright colors and what I can only describe as geometric shapes in the clouds, which were incredibly beautiful.

I muttered 'whoa' to myself over and over again as the visuals intensified. I once again couldn't believe what was happening. There weren't any cars in sight for awhile but then out of nowhere this minivan appeared in the distance. The van was staying about the same distance from us and it was really funny because it would disappear when we'd go over a hill and then slowly reappear as it cleared the peak. It was reminding me a lot of a video game; the van seemed to pursue us and for some reason it appeared strangely cute - almost like a little mouse or something. I couldn't help but laugh at its cuteness.

After about 15 minutes had elapsed (what seemed like an eternity) I turned around and talked a little with B and C, asking C how her trip was going, etc. It was rather difficult to make sentences and talking just really didn't seem worth it because there was no way I could ever explain the thoughts that were going through my mind. The landscape was becoming increasingly scenic; there were rocky cliffs and distant mountains behind a translucent layer of fog. It wasn't possible for me to imagine anything more beautiful and I couldn't fathom anything less that the sheer ecstasy I was feeling.

I became aware of how good the song we were listening to was (Run Like an Antelope) and decided to immerse myself in it. I covered my eyes and was seeing by far the best closed-eye visuals I've seen. There was so much going on and each movement of shapes seemed to have an opposite movement that complemented it perfectly (ex. - for a counterclockwise layer of shapes, there was also a clockwise layer). It was literally breathtaking. I realized that I hadn't even breathed for several seconds and when I finally did take a deep breath, it was practically orgasmic. I started fearing that I would forget to breath because of the utter bliss I was feeling. I soon got past this fear and B told us she was going to have to stop for gas at the next exit.

When we arrived at the gas station, little did I know how much this perfect trip would change in such a short amount of time. C had to get out to help B remove the gas tank lid, despite her anxiety about doing so, and I, much to my own dismay, really had to go to the bathroom, so I mentally prepared myself and embarked on this 'journey' to the bathroom. All was going well and I successfully got to the one-person bathroom. I looked at the fake wood paneling walls and the wood patterns started dripping down the walls and morphing into new patterns. The walls seemed to be closing in on me and were becoming warped. I, needless to say, was ready to get out of there.

I was really proud of myself for how normal I was acting, but was suddenly shot down as I walked by the clerks hearing them say 'Wonder what the deal with this one is' and other stuff like that. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard as I walked out the door. 'How do they know?!?' was all I could think about. I hadn't even looked at them! I decided that the only way they knew was because they could see inside my mind, and see my thoughts. The idea completely freaked me out, 'how could they read my mind' I wondered. Well, I decided it didn't really matter if they could read my mind because I'd never see them again, so I climbed back into the safe haven of the car.

C and B were finishing up outside the car and just then something rather creepy happened. This middle-aged, scary looking man drove by our car in an older black corvette extremely slowly, staring at us with a really freaky look on his face. I looked over at C and B to see if they had seen this, and they definitely had. I quickly forgot about it though after they got back in the car; it wasn't all that big of a deal. We got back onto the highway and I was feeling extremely glad the gas station stop was overwith. My body buzz was coming on strong and everything seemed so perfect. Then it happened.

A car pulled up beside us on the highway, going the exact same speed as us. It was the black corvette from the gas station. We all recognized immediately that it was the same car. The man was giving us that same piercing stare and was jacking off in the car! I don't think I'll ever be able to erase that horrible image from my memory. We all began to panic and C yelled to B to speed up. She quickly accelerated and we finally lost him. I was so afraid at that moment; I was completely in shock. None of us could believe what had just happened. Right then I started crying.

I couldn't control it; the more I thought about it the more tears poured out of my eyes. I felt indescribably violated at that moment. I was so angry that he had just destroyed my perfect moment, my perfect experience. How could he do that?! How could this be happening? All three of us were innocent and didn't deserve to have to see that, I didn't know what to make of all these emotions I was feeling. The happiness I'd felt only a few moments ago had been shattered by this sick, demented bastard. I suddenly began to think about how unimaginably horrible it must be to get raped. In the past, I knew rape was a terrible thing, but I couldn't identify with the victims of this heinous crime. I now felt I could.

This feeling of violation I was experiencing obviously can't begin to compare with being raped. I was becoming more and more angry as I thought about all the evil in the world. I was still crying at this point, and C and B were trying to comfort me, but it was no use. I tried to put into words my anger about all of the corruption and hate in this world, managing only to mutter between sobs, 'what has this world come to?' and 'it just makes me so mad that there's so many things wrong with the world and there's nothing we can do to fix them all.' I felt so incredibly helpless at that time. All I wanted to do was regain the happiness I was feeling before, but this seemed an impossibility.

B was trying to cheer me up and help take my mind off of what had just happened. She then pointed out it would be good to change the cd. We were listening to Live Phish, and the song had become extremely harsh and intense. The cd had completely gone along with all the events that just took place. It started out cheery and then when it happened, the music became more and more abrasive. This was something I hadn't noticed until she pointed it out, and it was so true and all I could say was 'this is so ridiculous.' We all agreed that it definitely was quite weird.

The fact that B had the cd that she put in at the time was also unbelievable. It was a mix cd that her friend K had made her, with songs that were all happy and about friendship. Some of the songs were 'If I had a million dollars' and 'You've got a friend in me.' This music was exactly what I needed to hear right then. I slowly began to move past what had happened and decided I wasn't going to let that ruin this trip, or this wonderful day. I was feeling so connected with C and B at that time. It was such an overwhelming rush of emotion, only now it was a feeling of love for life and friends. I told them how bonded I felt with them and they both agreed that this had been quite a bonding experience.

I started thinking about how there is always going to be evil in this world; I believe God intended it to be that way. I realized then that I must embrace the world for what it is, with all its beauty and good as well as its evil. Upon this realization, I decided that it is my duty in life to spread love because this is the only way to defeat evil. There's no need to hate, and I wish more than I can ever explain that everyone felt the same way. I felt very peaceful after I'd had these realizations; my happiness had returned, only now it was a wiser and deeper sense of tranquility. I was so filled with joy that I began crying. So many emotions; it was all so overwhelming. All I could mutter to C and B was 'I'm so happy' and 'I've just realized so many things.' They turned around to find me crying and I could tell they understood. I knew these were my true friends and that everything was going to be okay.

By this time we had arrived in Asheville. This was my first time seeing downtown Asheville during the day. As we were waiting at a stoplight, it happened. We were on College St. and about 100 ft. ahead of us there were people everywhere. The part of the crowd we could see was people riding around in circles on bikes and others standing amongst each other. I was completely confused as to what was happening, as were C and B. Just then a flock of pigeons flew up from the street and soared over the buildings. This sight has been imprinted in my mind; it was so beautiful. The crowd of people were protesters against the war. It was like a movie. We'd had no idea that this protest was going to be going on. I knew right then that this day was meant to happen - everything happens for a reason. It was such an indescribable feeling of euphoria; I now know my life is in good hands. Here we were, amongst people just like ourselves, with the same cause, in this perfect moment.

The atmosphere of downtown Asheville could only be described as majestic. As we drove by the rally there were people of all ages, and everyone looked so interesting. People were driving by honking and yelling for peace and I was just soaking it all in. How much better can this day get I thought. We all began searching for a parking space after we decided C and I were definitely okay to be around that many people. We finally found a parking garage that wasn't full and decided we'd go get a bite to eat before going to the rally. I hadn't eaten all day, and had completely forgotten about food. I was really excited about eating - it's one of the so many pleasures of life. All I could think about is how good life is. I was so glad to have this feeling once more. I was not going to let that horrible excuse for a human being rob me of that.

The weather in Asheville was absolutely glorious. It was 65 degrees, and I knew that on a day this perfect, it's inevitable for the weather to also be perfect. I marveled at the irony of how just the day before it had been snowing in Boone (where C and I bought the chocolate bars) and there was a huge ice storm predicted for the next day in the mountains and at home. This entire day was gift from God. There was so much going on in Asheville; it was exactly the atmosphere I wanted to be in. The streets were busy with people out and about and everywhere you looked you'd find someone walking a dog. I found this rather amusing. I was happy to be taking a stroll downtown, something I've always wanted to do tripping but never had the opportunity to.

B, who is very familiar with Asheville, suggested we eat at a quaint vegetarian restaurant. I was very excited and definitely ready to get some good food. By now I was on the tale end of my trip, but I was completely content with coming down, whereas in the past I usually would get rather sad to return back to normalcy. I attribute this feeling of contentment with the fact that everything I could possibly gain from a trip I had gained. The experience had been magnificent and I was loving the afterglow I was feeling. I was in a very thoughtful mood, reflecting on everything that had happened, as were B and C.

The inside of the restaurant was really colorful and fitting for the mood I was in. There was a beautiful mural on the wall that I probably could've looked at for hours. The restaurant, like everything else throughout the day, was perfect. Even the water was perfect. I hate ice, and there was no ice! How often does that happen?! The three of us had a great conversation, and I was really enjoying their company and myself. I felt so lucky at that moment. When the waitress took our order, the funniest thing happened. C had somehow missed my conversation with B about how everything on the menu was vegetarian, and when it was her turn to order, she, in a really polite and sweet voice said, 'I think I'll just have a cheeseburger and fries.' It was absolutely hilarious. The waitress said that they didn't have meat and we all got a good laugh out of that one after she left. Lunch was great and afterwards we checked out some of the interesting stores and then walked over to the rally.

The energy there was amazing. It felt so wonderful to be there, a part of such a great cause, which I had just been thinking about earlier. What a coincidence was all I could think. We hung out there walking around and just looking at all the fascinating people and then sadly decided it was time to head back to the car. We all were still absorbing the events of the day, and on the way home we all listened to music just thinking about everything. It was the perfect end to the perfect day. My thinking and perspective on life will never be the same. I've learned more in one day than some people learn in a lifetime. I know this was meant to happen, and it was meant to happen with B and C. None of us will ever forget today, nor will our bond we now share be broken.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 21392
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 29, 2006	Views: 12,998
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Mushrooms (39) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Glowing Experiences (4), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7)