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The Horror, The Horror
Mushrooms
Citation:   Jamshyd. "The Horror, The Horror: An Experience with Mushrooms (exp37992)". Erowid.org. Dec 1, 2004. erowid.org/exp/37992

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DOSE:
T+ 0:00
3.5 g oral Mushrooms (dried)
  T+ 0:45 0.5 mg oral Pharms - Alprazolam (pill / tablet)
BODY WEIGHT: 125 lb
I initially woke up with the thought of taking a psychedelic on that day. All other days which I woke up like this ended up with a spectacular trip. I was planning on taking a psychedelic to celebrate the successful completion of a 7-week spiritual working (for those who know, I was working with the Olympic spirits from The Arbatel). I had abstained from all drugs for more than a month, save for a couple of bowls and a beer spread out across the period.

The day started out as very gloomy and rainy. Don’t get me wrong, I love rain, but this day was dark and cold, and the rain did not help much. My plan was to take the psychedelic outdoors, in some park away from people. I was originally torn between 2C-T-7 and Mushrooms, both of which I never tried before. In the evening the sky cleared but it remained too cold to allow for an outdoors trip. So I chose the mushrooms, for their shorter duration, and for the fact that I can easily procure more if this trip was bad, whereas the dose of 2C-T-7 that I had could very well be the last 25mg of 2C-T-7 that I will ever see. Therefore, I decided to save the T-7 for a perfect occasion.

The problem is that I underestimated the mushrooms, for two reasons. The first being that I imagined, due to my spiritual background and my experiences (all beautiful) with the sacred DPT, that it would be hard for me to have a bad trip, since DPT is a mammoth of a psychedelic which I handle very well and the people I know who took mushrooms seemed to imply that it was a rather easy trip. The second reason was that I didn’t think that 3.5 grams of mushrooms would do much to me, since I have had a high natural tolerance to all Tryptamines I tried.

Some background: I live with my parents, who would not appreciate their son “doing drugs.” They are aware of my spiritual practices and are tolerant of them, so I had that on my side. I had always been able to take psychedelics with or without their presence, and get away with it without them suspecting that I am under the influence. This happened in that the psychedelic is either short acting (like DPT), or long acting but does not cause much impairment or confusion (like 2C-E), or a combination of both (like 2C-D). Almost two years before this experience, I took 500 morning glory seeds on one occasion and went into a severe vomiting fit that scared me and turned my trip very bad. I eventually had to turn to my parents for emotional help, and I was lucky they were understanding when I explained that it was a part of my spiritual progress (and it was). The moral: Do not underestimate the importance of a trip sitter! I've found parents are not very good with this role. In my MGS experience, I managed to somehow convince them that I was not poisoned. As you will see in this report, I put my parents in a very stressful situation, and I feel it was very selfish of me to do so. Read on.

The 3.5 grams were made up of 4 stems, 1 cap, and 1 unopened cap attached to one of the stems (a terminal, which I have been told contains more Psiloc(yb)than opened ones). They all had blue stains on them. They were all eaten between 5:00pm and 5:10pm. They didn’t smell bad at all, somewhat exotic. The taste wasn’t very encouraging, but bearable. I actually felt an alert as I was finishing eating the last stem. I walked around… I was beginning to notice that movement was becoming typically more “fluid”. I then had a meal, which took me 45 minutes into the trip. I was now feeling definitely off baseline. From then, I began developing some anxiety. As time progressed, I became a little uncoordinated, and the anxiety grew. I really did not know why I was having so much anxiety. The psychedelic effects were not new to me at all. Yet I was actually scared. A big thing my mind fixed on was that my mother would be able to tell that I am on drugs because of my lack of coordination and, as my thoughts were beginning to get jumbled, I imagined I won’t be able to interact clearly with her.

I decided to take 0.5mg Alprazolam because I was now sure that I was bound for a bad trip (I didn’t care if it diminishes the psychedelic effects, I was just desperate to get out of this discomfort). I then went to lie down. I was shivering. I didn’t know if it was the cold or my anxiety. I went under the covers, but I still shivered severely. The problem is that I was not exactly intensely tripping – I was simply very confused and had irrational anxiety. And I didn’t like it. I was also feeling an uncomfortable body load that reminded me a lot of 5-MeO-DMT, and I didn’t like it. With that, and despite the Alprazolam, the anxiety grew. And grew.

And grew.

I figure I was now at the 2 hour mark. I was experiencing nothing but pure terror. I was literally afraid of everything, including myself. Actually the one thing that frightened me most was fear itself. I had no real reason to be afraid, and yet I was. It certainly was not ego death that scared me – I had my ego dissolved in the divine ocean of milk on DPT while the world shattered many times before, and I have taken on other, alien personalities on Ketamine at one point. Therefore I knew my fear was not out of some kind of identity crisis. Yet I was afraid of being afraid, and also afraid of the fact that the Alprazolam did absolutely nothing (later I learned that 0.5mg might not be enough, even though I don’t have much tolerance to the drug).

I decided to seek help by talking to friends. I went on MSN. As I waited for it to sign on, I looked at the window and I saw a matrix of multicoloured dots. It was an interesting visual that persisted for a while – all the dots where mathematically perfect in size and arrangement. I also had a hard time typing because letters on the screen all had red “electricity” buzzing around them, and I had very bad coordination. I found only two of my friends online, and both were geographically far away. One of them told me not to self-medicate with Alprazolam, since “it could be a potentially dangerous combination.” Now, I know that the most commonly used as a safe cure for bad trips is benzodiazepines, but at this moment, since I was so afraid of everything, I took his word for it.

This experience of fear reminded me how pathetic I was. I told this to the second friend. He simply told me what a good person he thought I was, and that I didn’t deserve all the crap that I went through this year. I found his comment extremely nice, and started crying. I then went to lie down, and cried a lot. It was a catharsis for a very bad year. Mind you, I had been doing better for the last couple of months compared to the rest of the year, which was a very difficult one. However, I have a tendency to suppress (but not repress) negative emotions. I am guessing that what this trip did was simply release these suppressions and breaking the dam. I experienced the year’s worth of anxiety and despair in 6 hours.

Now that it was about the 4th hour, I was lying down, occasionally crying. The time between hour 3 and hour 5 seems to be a blur. I lost track of it and I do not remember all that happened, but much of it was spent lying down. I did not listen to music, since I was afraid to listen to music. I didn’t get up, since I was afraid of getting up. I remember crying a lot, and feeling sorry for myself (something I don’t normally do). The trip took a distinct sine-wave form. I got periods of extreme euphoria and an opiate-like body feeling, followed by the aforementioned fear with a lot of shivering and tension.

The positive points, though fewer than the negative ones, were very significant. I remember the first peak I was lying down, my body twisted, my eyes and mouth wide open, staring at the ceiling with a feeling of immense wonder. The ceiling was no longer a ceiling, I don’t know what it was, perhaps a white sky with multicoloured stars and streams that kept moving? I remember staring at the light. A lot of green eye-murals (think Alex Grey’s artwork) flew out of the light and swirled around it, all in geometrically perfection. Since I was afraid of closing my eyes, the few closed-eye visuals that I saw were faint and chaotic.

After that euphoric peak came another fit of terror, and that was followed by a sense of “this is it”… my body felt like it was dying, and I truly believed that I was somehow dying.

In fact, I think this is what the big problem was. My ego did not die, for some reason. I maintained my ego as I lost control amongst a lot of confusion and anxiety, and I don’t know why. Perhaps I did not want to let go because I knew I still had a long trip ahead of me and did not want my mother to see me in that state and freak out. I also needed someone to be with me. But I had no one to contact. My only friend nearby was busy that day. Plus, as I thought of all the people I know, I became afraid of all of them and found I had no one to trust. I felt like I could trust no one. And because my ego remained, I went into a rather psychotic state. I started crying and masturbating at the same time for some reason (of course, the masturbation didn’t do much due to the state I was in). I know for a fact that at this point I was just overflowing with love towards everyone (which is paradoxical with the fear). I felt like nothing mattered, but unlike the exhaled form of the same feeling I get with DPT after ego annihilation, here my ego was there and knew that I was going insane.

And for the first time ever on a psychedelic… I actually forgot that I took a drug! Actually I didn’t forget, it just somehow ceased to be relevant. I was convinced that I was going to be eternally insane.

This “insanity” extended between two “lows” of terror and one “peak” of euphoria. During this one peak, I felt God-intoxicated like I do with DPT. I felt like I had super-human powers. I had many twisted thoughts, including the idea of walking outside naked in public (now it was back to raining – almost a storm) BECAUSE NOTHING MATTERED AND NOW I HAVE BECOME GOD AND WILL DIE SOON!!!! Hover, in spite this insanity, I had a grain of reason left in my, and that told me to stay as still and as silent as possible, and that that would be the best way out.

As these thoughts persisted, the terror remained, and instead of God, I was now possessed by paranoia. I stumbled into the bathroom because I needed to pee. My vision was blurry and I seem to have had some nystagmus. As I was in the bathroom I felt the same PAINFUL terror I felt throughout the trip. I was debating whether or not to go tell my mother. I figured since the original source of anxiety was my fear of my mother seeing me in that state, perhaps confronting her about it will resolve the anxiety.

And so I stumbled down the stairs and into the living room (where she was sitting) I barely made it to the couch where I fell on it. I was completely paralyzed. I remember hearing my mother freaking out and calling my name and asking whats wrong. I then remember seeing nothing. Not black, nore white, nothing. I saw nothingness. I was stuck in a moment where the divine and I were one. I saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing. I then had a whiteout. This happened to me before on two previous occasions. I saw whiteness everywhere, whether my eyes are open or closed. Eventually I “came back”.. I saw my mother holding my limp body and crying. I told her I was alright. She said she thought I had died. The whiteness dissipated into many hues of different colours and again the eye murals that covered everything but quickly disappeared. It took me only a few minutes to recover from that state and reach a level very close to baseline and I still do not know how this is possible. With most psychedelics you climb, peak, then slowly recover baseline. Here, I spend 5 hours climbing, peaked at the 6th, and quickly returned to baseline in almost half an hour. I suspect it was less from the drug action and more from the psychospiritual reaction.

As I came to I simply told my mother that I was on morning glory seeds, and it was not hard to explain. I was then able to open up emotionally with my mother. I had had problems connecting emotionally to my parents for the past few years. I loved them, but could not express it, and felt very guilty about that. I was now able to very openly talk to my mother (and later my father when he came home), and I managed to talk to them about many serious outstanding issues. There were two things my parents wanted me to do for my future that I was very afraid of and previously could not do. The day after the trip, I found myself easily starting with them without fear, and happy at the fact that I am finally doing something that I know will make my parents happy after all they did for me.

I would say that I have never felt so much fear in my life as I had during that trip. I really did not enjoy it. And yet, at the end it was worth it. The only thing I regret is putting my mother in such a stressful position. But even that has shown me that she really cares for me. I had suicidal ideas before and now I would never kill myself and put her in that situation for real. I simply cannot cope with the guilt. Although I said I will never touch mushrooms again during the trip, I now think I might consider taking them in a few years time. However, they definitely deserve much more respect than they are given on the street.

Exp Year: 2004ExpID: 37992
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 1, 2004Views: 141,969
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Mushrooms (39) : First Times (2), Families (41), Bad Trips (6), Alone (16)

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