From Earth to Nirvana to Hell
Mushrooms
Citation:   Justin Case. "From Earth to Nirvana to Hell: An Experience with Mushrooms (exp28138)". Erowid.org. Nov 19, 2003. erowid.org/exp/28138

 
DOSE:
  oral Mushrooms (dried)
BODY WEIGHT: 130 lb
The following experience happened over 12 years ago yet it stands out as the single most startling experience of my life. It was by far both the best AND worst trip I’ve ever had. The following account begins with some tedious social stuff but it is pertinent to the following trip experience, so bear with me…

I had a friend we’ll call D. D liked a girl we’ll call K. D and K dated for a while and then K broke up with D. D was upset with K.

Later, K was secretly had an affair with E. They kept the affair a secret because E was in a serious relationship with one of K’s friends. K decided that what they were doing was wrong and that they had to stop the affair. E was upset with K over the ending of their affair.

Then D befriended E and the two of them shared bad feelings towards K. Around this time I befriended K.

D and E began to experiment with the Ouija board. Neither of them believed in “spirits” or “ghosts” but they began to have uncanny and unexplainable results. Everyone around them seemed to fall in with their Ouija sessions for a while, then experience weird stuff in the middle of the night or get “zapped” and become very ill from it for a few days. D and E, however, seemed to get no negative effects from it.

Personally, I was never around for those sessions and I found the idea as silly and childish as a bedtime ghost story. K had never been around for it either.

Now, K and I were getting closer and we seemed to be on the verge of crossing from friendship to boyfriend / girlfriend. D and E seemed to have negative feelings about this. I understood where D was coming from, but I did not understand why E had bad vibes over this because, as mentioned, the affair he had with K was a secret.

Now, in this period of my life I had been experimenting with LSD and ‘shrooms occasionally and had some truly mind altering experiences. K and I decided that we would set aside a day and share a large dose of ‘shrooms. The day before I made some preparations for the setting (mixed audio tapes, art books to look at, etc). She slept in my bed that night and I slept of the floor. I dreamt I was a dog curled up at the foot of the bed guarding her.

I was woken up by D and E. They had brought the Ouija and began to “channel” their spirits in my living room. I thought it was silly so kept myself busy eating or something. “They” (D and E and/or the “spirits”) began to say bad things about K. I got upset and had it out with them. I basically told them that they were using this “game” as a way to express ill feelings towards K because they did not have the balls to say these things upfront. They assured me that the “spirits” were saying these things and that I should not upset them by claiming they were not real. I (still doubting) asked them to prove it. They warned me that I was making a huge mistake by challenging the “spirits” but that only encouraged me. I got extreme and severe in my challenges and insults against the “spirits”. I was not sure if I believed that they were actually channeling spirits, but it did not matter, because if they were real I still was not in the least bit afraid of them.

Finally they announced that the “spirits” said they would do something very bad to me – not to damage me physically but to scare me so bad that I would never doubt them again. Still scoffing I went back to bed.

The next day K and I split up a very large amount of ‘shrooms. I wish I could tell you how much, but I really don’t know. It was a lot though. I don’t remember exactly what we did as the trip came on, but I know that once I started really feeling it I was lying on my bed listening to a mixed tape of songs I had prepared especially for tripping. The last song was the William Tell Overture from the Clockwork Orange soundtrack. You may know this song as the theme from the Lone Ranger TV show. In this version of the song the music gallops along at high speed and with great energy and then it gets quiet and slow, and slower and slower until it is no more…

…and in that silence the symphony continued as the symphony of symphonies; the song of life, the dance of Shiva. I perceived every sound, the birds outside, the cats playing upstairs, the cars down the block, the breeze, my own heartbeat, everything as a song, all motion as a dance, the dance. Everything from the electron spin resonance to the motion of the planets and everything in between was dancing alive. I perceived that all was motion, all was flux, all was rhythm within rhythm, all flowed together. Matter was energy; space was time.

And as I elevated in consciousness I went beyond all this, so far beyond. As the Yogis say, “gate’, gate’, paragate’, parasamgate’ ”. Anyway I felt much like I had when I was at the peak of my meditation practice years before, a state of profound peace. I perceived that all was perfect. Even apparently negative experiences were a necessary part of the wonderful game of life, mere shadows to define the light. I went further.

From what I have read about Samadhi (to use the Yogic model) I would have to say that Samadhi was what I experienced. I no longer was in a human body lying on a bed - I no longer existed as I. I was no longer an individual. One could say that I was all, but there was no I any longer, there was just… something for which words cannot suffice. I suppose that the best words I can use to describe it are to say that there was a white light/void/ecstasy beyond all imaginable ecstasies.

After some time in this state (it could have been a second or hours for all I could tell) it was time to gently return. On the way down I decided that I could pass this message on to others if I didn’t speak any longer. Words would only detract from the truth in my eyes, but with a mere look, I could pass this on to others and they would just “get it”.

I had tears streaming down my face. These were tears of joy over the unbearable ecstasy of the realization that all consciousness was Love and bliss. Now please understand that the words I use to describe this experience may come closer than any other words, but they are still just dead drab dull and failed attempts at even hinting towards the experience. If you have ever read the middle section of “Be Here Now” by Ram Das, you may sort of know what I am hinting towards.

This experience had completely dispelled all anxiety over the question of life after death and whether or not there is a soul beyond the physical body. This experience also made the worst experiences in my life but trivial shadows immediately enlightened by the sun borne in my heart.

Now, while all this was going on, K was beginning to have a bad trip. She was very confused and scared. She was on the floor above the one I was on and while I lay there I could here her voice and the fear in her tone. My brother had been watching over her, trying to calm her down. I went upstairs just in time to see my brother helping her to the bathroom to vomit. I remember seeing a lot of little undigested chunks of ‘shrooms all over the bathroom floor. After she vomited we helped her back down stairs and I sat her down on the bed. I could see extreme fear and confusion in her expressions. I smiled peacefully at her until her eyes met mine. I twinkled light from my eyes and said “don’t worry, we are all right, everything is beautiful” without actually speaking. Immediately her face and mood changed. She just snapped into a relaxed and happy mode as soon as our eyes met.

Now, what I did not know at the time was that while she was having a bad trip, voices spoke to her and told her that I had drugged her and that is why she was having such a terrifying trip. These voices told her I was evil and that she needed to get away from me. For the time being, however, my good vibes set her at ease and for a while we had a pleasant time just listening to music, hanging out in the yard, swimming in the pool or whatever.

But the voices crept back into her mind and sent her down the dark road to a bad trip again and this time there was nothing I could do to stop the onslaught of her terror and delusion. This time around she was actually telling me to stay away from her and that she was going to call her parents. I tried to talk her out of that and remind her that she was only tripping, that it would all fade away in a while and that clling her parents would get all of us in a lot of trouble. My brother, however, simply took the phone off the wall and hid it.

At one point she used the bathroom and forgot to put her shorts back on. It seemed I could not get her to put them back on! Then she attempted to pull some steak knives out of the kitchen drawer, either to defend herself from me (because I was a demon bent on driving her permanently insane) or perhaps to kill herself (because the voices were telling her to kill herself and join them, so the insanity would end and they could take care of her). She also made a mad dash straight for the glass patio door (she was about to run right through it) and somehow I leapt and caught her ankle. She started screaming for help as loud as she could.

She became so violent and unmanageable that I finally gave up on trying to maintain this train-wreck / trip-disaster and told her to call her parents. Well, wouldn’t you know it, my brother and I could not hook the phone back up. There she was freaking out while we were fumbling over the phone! Finally we got it together and we called her parents.

Her parents, the police, and an ambulance arrived around the same time. I remember K running out of the house wearing only a T-shirt telling her parents that I gave her drugs. “This is the end” I thought, “I’m going to jail for drugging and then attempting to rape a minor”. You see, I was 18 and she was 17.

Her parents freaked out on me, a neighbor freaked out on me and told me he would tell my parents as soon as they got back from vacation, and at least one cop threatened me.

Mercifully, however, the one cop that stayed behind to get the facts from me took pity on me. I told him the whole truth (except who I got the ‘shrooms of course) and he never took me to jail! I probably seemed too pathetic to punish any further.

In the aftermath, my relationship with my parents was damaged, I was sent into a bad depression, I carried a lot of guilt and regret, and it seemed that the only thing that could reconcile it all was if I were to be fully forgiven by K. Even though I did nothing wrong, but afterwards, there was the lingering sense that I really WAS evil and that I really HAD done this to her, so I had to have her realize that I WAN’T evil in order to move on myself.

Unfortunately this never happened. It took a few months to earn the trust of her parents enough to see her, and after that she just wouldn’t do the right thing by me – to realize and reassure me that she just had a bad trip and that it was not my fault..

After some time she DID realize what actually happened, but in an clever and cruel way that only a woman can be, she used my own guilt and regret to hurt me in - not out of any sort of revenge, but just in a sadistic form of play, like a cat playing with a wounded mouse. Finally I realized what how she really was and what she was doing ot me and I just wrote her off.

Anyway, the connection between the Ouija spirits and the voices that K heard did not occur to D, E, or myself until E’s girlfriend (a witch) found out and sort of reacted as if to say “Well, DUH! Of course it was the spirits you guys invoked! Why would you mix spirit channeling and tripping?!? You guys are lucky nothing worse happened!”

Well, in the end, no one was seriously hurt… just as the “spirits” promised. As horrible as the bad side was, the good part of the trip dwarves the bad part like the sun dwarves a shadow. It’s light still shines upon me from outside of time, from beyond the world. It is that from which we have all descended and that to which we all shall return.

The moral of the story? Only trip very lightly with others unless you know each other very, very well and you are sure they can handle it very well.You do not need the psychic baggage, the psychological issues or the karmic knots of others to mix you up in their drama. Doing so is asking for trouble.

Exp Year: 1991ExpID: 28138
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 19, 2003Views: 21,200
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Mushrooms (39) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Mystical Experiences (9), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Difficult Experiences (5)

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