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Fractal Frenzy
Mushrooms
by endo
Citation:   endo. "Fractal Frenzy: An Experience with Mushrooms (exp29013)". Erowid.org. Apr 3, 2006. erowid.org/exp/29013

 
DOSE:
2.5 g oral Mushrooms (dried)
This Friday I did shrooms for the first time. I went into the woods with a friend and his girlfriend. The place was great: right in the mountains: one side rocks, on the other woods, we also had a small river. He is an experienced shroomer while I never touched any strong psychedelics. I was looking forward to shrooming for about one year and wanted some 6 grams in order to have a level 5, but he convinced me to take only 2.5. We all took 2.5... it was mind blowing. He (dl) also took half an acid. I munched the stuff quite quickly. At first it tasted nice but it got worse and worse.

After 40 minutes I felt energized but felt uncomfortable when standing up - so I lied down. Dl went exploring so I was left with her at the base camp. I closed my eyes and saw a lot of dots on a red background. They were moving fast. Soon they formed a sort of walls (made out of dots) and I seemed to move between the walls. She asked: “can you see the dots?” “yeeeeees”, I replied. After a while I opened my eyes and stared at the sky. The clouds soon started to morph in a great spectacle. Then they looked like an embossed jpeg and then morphed again, then neon glow…and so on. They also did this swirling like fractals.

We kept telling each other what we saw and surprisingly it was almost identical. The rocky side seemed to be very far away now and looked as if it was hand drawn. The hill next to us looked very hairy. I just kept smiling and felt like a little baby. Soon dl came back and climbed the hill next to us. He was standing under a tree and we could perfectly see that modern man doesn’t fit in nature anymore. He looked like a tourist visiting mother earth. I joined him, but first I had to cross a tiny river.

It had a width of maybe 1-1.5m. I wasn’t afraid of jumping but I did not know how much power to use. In the end I decided to trust my body and just jump. I succeeded =). He asked me whether I saw the fractal over there. ”When you look at it you kind of get sucked into another world” he said. I looked at the grass where he pointed but there was no fractal to see. Then I sat down and stared around. Suddenly I saw the Fractal! It wasn’t that sort of colored image I would find on the net. I recognized the pattern of the grass! It was a fractal! I felt like being sucked into it.

After this everything looked different. I felt like visiting the moon. I could see all the patterns around me. My thoughts started racing at the speed of light. I began understanding everything. My mind would go like billions of thoughts and images a second. I went down the hill to tell them what I just found out (I was understanding new things, things I newer understood before). We were speaking but all we said was half of the sentence, as we already knew what the other wanted to say. They lied down but I just kept walking around the blankets and said: ”exactly ..exactly…exactly”, from time to time I would turn to them and say: ”its like in pi, you know”.

I understood how everything is and what it is. I was making connections between things, which seemed to have nothing in common, but in fact they were all the same. I realized that everything’s the same and repeating itself. Every time I understood something I laughed. I explained to them that everything is a huge fractal made out of tiny units, which just keep repeating themselves. They we're fractals too. I recognized the patterns in my actions, in my life. We started to discuss this fractal theory. It was a very weird discussion. At first it appeared that we were talking about completely different things but after each said his “line” we understood the relations between the ideas. We were speaking on different levels. We came up with “everybody holds a piece of the puzzle”. We were peaking. Then he replied to something I said ”what do you mean?”. She asked: “what meant the first human to say when he spoke for the first time? Did he mean the same thing you mean?”

This sent me spinning really hard and led me deeper into the universal fractal. I realized that this fractal has infinite levels/dimensions and thus is infinite. It is not infinite in space or time, but in being. It knows no space no time, no nothing. It is made out of the void and knows only suchness. It keeps morphing in and out of itself (which I suppose makes it relate to itself and thus create universes). I understood the infinity and importance of everything. I had some sort of visual or something, where I saw “everything”: the huge fractal, with the tiny fractal units, which are identical to the huge fractal. It was infinite in its every infinity, in every bit, and kept morphing around, in and out. That set loose another thought shower. My mind started racing again at incredible speed.

I was asking myself questions like what was this good for, and what this fractal meant, I was thinking several thoughts at one time, and realized that I knew everything, absolutely everything, and that meant I did not know anything. This is where I experienced something I call “mind-fuck”. A point where my mind freezes, everything gets distorted by an enormous delay and echo. Then I get an error message like in windows but with empty message box. I don’t know how to describe it but I get totally stuck in it. A problem creates itself in order to be solved, just like in pi.

We ate something. Tomato chips had a very lame taste but the texture was very cool. I had brought a lemon, which had a very interesting taste and nice texture. I held it in my hand for about one hour.

I felt like being in a loop. This loop was obviously a fractal bit. I understood this so it led me deeper into the fractal but at the same time it led me out of it. Everything was everything and nothing at the same time. Every second turned out to be the same in essence as the previous one, and the same as the two seconds together, and the same as a year. A lifetime was a twinkling of an eye, +infinite was –infinite at the same time. Now I understand that this means they are one, everything is one, which does not exist, but at that moment I got totally stuck in that and could understand, my mind was overwhelmed.

Now I also understand that these elementary forces were tearing me apart, maybe into nonexistence, but I had no idea what was going on and they kind of needed my approval to make me disappear. At that moment I had no idea of this. Dl said we had passed the peak some time ago and we were waking up. But I couldn’t feel this wake-up. I kept understanding the same thing, since everything was the same. I went deeper and deeper until I reached stagnation. I wasn’t able to draw a conclusion. I started to wake up in the same trip, so basically I got fooled, and wasn’t waking up. I looked at the clock, and although I could see the numbers clearly I wasn’t sure what they meant. What was a minute, or an hour. I had no concept about time. I was getting scared about this not being able to wake up. I did not know at that time that I was scared, I was too busy with understanding what not being able to wake up meant.

After a short while we “decided” we had woken up, but I was still in the same loop. I looked at the watch again, and after analyzing it closely I realized I was before I looked at it the last time. I found that very stupid and said to myself that this time story is a big joke and I shouldn’t be concerned about it. The loop was evidence of the fractal theory, which led me even deeper and deeper inside it. I got nervous and walked around saying all sorts of stuff about pi and the fractals, which made them, spin too a bit.

I got really scared (without noticing) and dl tried to calm me down. I wanted to explain him my problem but I just said “its….you…..know…pi….exactly….pi”. He started asking me questions, and some sent me further spinning. After a while I thought he was I. and I was I. everybody was a different level of me. I knew that we were all the same. I was really astonished by that and it calmed me down a bit. He told me to stop thinking so much. I tried to stop but couldn’t.” You decide” he said. She said “do you want to get back to the “usual” world or stay in the trip. “

We were standing on a road. Left led to where we came from while right went deeper into the woods. I looked left, looked right, back left, right, then to them. Dl was standing on my left; she was standing on my right. I was in the middle. Now I really felt like everything froze, I was the only one who could move. I had to decide, it was the decision of my life. ”So what do you want?” he asked after a while. ”I don’t know I said”.

I had no idea what I wanted. I couldn’t really see the difference between the two, I had no idea what I was doing there, why I was there, then. I had known everything, but I did not know what the fuck I wanted. This immediately made me recall a trip I had while listening to shpongle (without drugs). There were three entities in the trip. Before the trip I decided I want to meet them again (I had read that you should determine an aim for the trip before tripping, so that’s what I wanted from my trip except enlightment).

I finally saw that he was the drummer (who would keep me on the ground), she was the goblin (who would lead me deeper and deeper into the jungle),and the truth (3rd entity) was everywhere, just like in that shpongle experience. I felt like I was hit by god, or the truth, or reality… by IT with full force. I now understood that I was completely fooled all the time. I saw that everyone was a drummer or goblin, everyone I knew. The truth and reality was all there in front of my eyes, all my life and I had never seen it. The secret of everything exploded inside of me and I felt like I got stuck in it.

I was so overwhelmed by this that I couldn’t even cry. Out of happiness out of sadness, it was none of the two it was pure being and I could express it, I couldn’t understand it. I heard the pi soundtrack, which made me panic. It has this sound like, ”great now you know and have no idea what to do with it. So what now? You blew it…great job, now there’s nothing to be done, because nothing can be done anymore.”

I didn’t panic about my panic, I knew it was not good and I had to get rid of it. I didn’t even feel like –I- was panicking. I kept telling myself to calm down, to get out of this lucid panic. We walked around and admired nature, but I was still scared. It was very weird to be totally afraid and walk around, look at flowers, at the river and admire their beauty. I just couldn’t stop thinking, or actually I was thinking that I can't stop thinking. Just like I was thinking that I was still scared. I decided that I wanted to wake up but I couldn’t.

We were 5-6 hours into the trip. He asked me again what I wanted. This time I was sure I wanted to get back before the trip. He asked: ”how was it before the trip, where you want to get back?” “Isn’t it like here, look around!”. Puff! Everything was normal again. And I was calm and unpanicked. It was exactly like in ordinary reality.

It has always been. I kept waking up in the same trip but I wasn’t scared anymore. We slowly woke up now. Actually we accepted that we’ve been tripping since we’ve been born. All that shrooms did, was make me realize, that I’m tripping and can’t wake up. That’s not bad, actually it is perfectly alright. In the end a dog visited us and I found him to be very nice.

We walked back to the cottage where they were staying. The guy who stayed there asked as if we’ve been far out (into the woods he meant),and Dl said: “sort of”. We all smiled. e had some sandwiches, which tasted absolutely wonderful. There was no electricity and we sat there by the light of a petrol lamp and discussed the trip.

(this was more than 7 hours after the trip so basically I was down again)

I got home and sat down on the couch while my father was watching TV. He was quite angry because the workers who renovate the house didn’t put some stones where they belong. I found it very amusing. Everything was a fractal and it was a problem that a stone does not sit right…. I tried to watch TV but couldn’t. I heard what they spoke in English (I’m not English) but I was too lazy to decode it. I found that to be very unimportant. I couldn’t really follow the subtitles as I thought it was not worth the effort. So I went to bed and while lying there I got scared about the loop again and so on. The next day I found out my friends got lost on the way back (they drove me home). They got scared and kind of reentered the trip. Maybe I got scared because they got scared. It might be that we were still connected by that telepathy from the trip.

Now I feel like I always used to. Was it a bad trip? Not at all. A difficult one? Yes, but I learned very much from it.

Except the philosophical stuff, I cant sum up in less than several books, I learned that I can't turn things off just like that, I have to distract my mind from them, do it the stylish way, and most of all: ”don’t panic”- this is good to keep in mind but not very helpful in a trip (that’s what I think), in a trip I should better remember to take things with humor and laugh whenever I feel “in danger”.

After the trip I had something like a depression, or instable mood for about 2-3 weeks (which wasn’t bad actually, I might as well call it a melancholic period of reflection), probably because of the posttraumatic stress disorder. I find that first time shroomers should know about this just like they do about the other stuff. After the trip they should talk to other people and try to analyze it.

Something like 1.5 months after the trip I got drunk and entered another mind fuck situation concerning yin-yang. It felt like in the trip. I even had closed eye visuals. In the end I understood it (yin-yang is really a smart thingy) and it got sorted out. This time there was no such thing as fear. I would call this a flashback because it happened an hour after I was down from the alcohol and felt just like mushrooms, but then I had trips without taking drugs, and flashbacks from these trips too so I would say you shouldn’t worry about it ;-).

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 29013
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Apr 3, 2006Views: 17,908
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Mushrooms (39) : First Times (2), Difficult Experiences (5), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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