Ltd Ed 'Solve et Elucido' Art Giclee
This reverberating psychedelic giclee print is a gift for a
$500 donation to Erowid. 12" x 12", stretched on canvas, the
image wraps around the sides of the 1" thick piece. Signed
by artist Vibrata, and Erowid founders Earth & Fire.
Where is There?
Mushrooms
Citation:   Erikah. "Where is There?: An Experience with Mushrooms (exp40547)". Erowid.org. Jun 1, 2006. erowid.org/exp/40547

 
DOSE:
  smoked Cannabis (plant material)
  3.0 g oral Mushrooms (dried)
BODY WEIGHT: 133 lb
Me and my friend (who we'll call Sara) decided we would trip on mushrooms. I had never done it before, but she had so I was really nervous and scared. She told me to research it so that I would know what to expect, and how to deal with it. So, being the good girl I am, I did my homework. It almost made me more nervous, in the sense that I suffered the occasional anxiety/panic attack. But I thought that I could deal with it. I decided though, that maybe a bowl or so of pot would calm me down. So at about 10 am or so, 5 people and me went outside to smoke up. We smoked about a gram between the 6 of us so I was nice and high, and calm as can be.

Lunchtime rolls around at school, and Sara and I go eat the mushrooms. They tasted like...well, mushrooms. I was surprised that they didn't make me gag, since I had read about them being completely foul tasting. I ate the 3 grams of dried shrooms, while Sara ate about 2. This was around 12:30. I headed back towards the cafeteria, while I waited for the trip to start. I decided that doing homework would be the most relaxing thing that I could do, so I opened my binder and started working on my English report. I started realizing that as people walked past me, they left a faint trail of colors behind them. I knew it was something to be expected, so I continued being somewhat 'normal' doing my homework. When I found that I couldn't concentrate any longer, I packed my stuff up, and Sara and I decided that school was NOT a good place to be. We decided to go to either the library or Subway.

I don’t remember having much of an uncomfortable “coming up”, or any nausea at all, but this could be due to the marijuana I smoked earlier.

After about this point, I don't really remember the order.

We went to the bathroom and I sat down on the floor, then I realized that the floor was running away from me. I thought it was so cool, so I watched for a bit. Then Sara came out of the bathroom, and we left. We went to the library for a little bit, and just sat. I had this amazing feeling that everything was all one thing, but all separate at the same time. It doesn't make sense now, but it did then. So we sat, watching all the things move and what not, when suddenly I heard this woman walking in our direction. She wasn't coming TO US, more just in the area, but I could FEEL all this tension coming off of her. Almost like an Aura, only I couldn't see it. Just sense it. I knew she was stressed or something. I told this to Sara, and she said that she could feel it too. It was so amazing being able to ‘connect’ with people like that.

It was nearly 2 o’clock, and we had to meet our friend “Ryan” at 3:30. We left the library and headed to Subway. We bought a drink and sat down. Sara asked me to take out my scribbler so she could write. I just remember sitting at the window, feeling like such a little kid. Like a little kid WAITING for something to happen. Waiting to do something. I wanted people, but Sara didn’t want to go back to school. So she wrote a bit… I kept looking at the time. It was roughly 2 o’clock, and I remember looking and looking…but it was ALWAYS 2 O’CLOCK. I realized that the shrooms had put us in an entire new dimension… another world. We were here, along with everyone else, but we weren’t WITH them. It felt like I was able to watch life, yet not participate. I felt like I could move “sideways” in time, while everyone else couldn’t.

It was between 2 and 2:30 that we decided to leave to meet Ryan. We had to take the bus, so we walked to the bus stop. I remember feeling like everybody (as humans) had to always DO SOMETHING. That’s what made them human. If people just sat and did NOTHING, it would make them some type of inanimate object, like a lamp or a rock. So I wanted to be human again. I wanted to do something. But I felt like I couldn’t make it back to the human dimension of “time”. While we were waiting at the bus stop, I asked myself…who created time? And why is it here? We rely on time so much…. If time didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have the boundaries to keep us from doing what we REALLY wanted to do. The shrooms seemed to slow time down for me… So I suddenly felt superior to everyone… because I could in a way “control” time. As I sat on the bus, I wondered how much time had passed. I wondered why I wasn’t in school, or at home… but why I was STILL on the bus. I looked outside, and just thought about how everything would be better, if we didn’t have to keep track of time. Then I realized that I could just lose time by throwing my watch away, which I promptly did. It was close to 3, and I can say that all traces of logical thinking had left my mind.

We eventually made it to Ryan’s school, and waited outside his locker. It was probably around 3 o’clock, and I was feeling…detached. I still felt apart from the world as a whole. It was like a wave of emotion came over me…and I couldn’t take it. I needed something. I needed people… love… family. So I ran out of the school, crying, just looking. But for what, I don’t know. As I walked, I realized that since people were always GOING SOMEWHERE, they must be always lost (I don’t know how I made that connection, but it made sense at the time…). All these people, trying to get somewhere. And what happens when they get there? They just need to be somewhere else.

I went home. I needed something still. But I didn’t know what. So I punched my wall and ran to the kitchen. I ate a cookie, then said I needed “to find people” and left. Then I came home again, about 5 mins later and did the exact same thing, only I didn’t realize I had just repeated myself. I was completely alone now, and wandering the streets. It was probably close to 4 or 5. I kept asking people where they were going, and if they too were lost.

So I had this entire idea in my head that everything and everyone was just a “ripple of my own being” or something, meaning that they were just a reflection of everything that I am. I thought that I had somehow made EVERYTHING up….everything (but more on that later)… I walked around a bit and thought that everything was just a ripple of everything else. For example, that’s why I saw so many busses…. They were coming…. and going…then coming again…not because there was more then one, but because they were the same one, caught in some sort of time loop, never really going anywhere. Once again, it made sense at the time. Then this crazy idea came to my head that if they could stay the same, maybe I could too… somehow. But something in my mind told me that I couldn’t….but that I would always change. Always. Everything I liked, hated and loved would somehow be reflected by the way I stood, looked or talked. That I could somehow look however I wanted, whenever I wanted, depending on how much I knew, what I thought or where I was.

So if I could do that…so could everyone else. I had this entire thought that everyone’s world was what they wanted it to be. That it too, reflected each and every individual’s desires, needs, and hates. That I had somehow made up history as I knew it, because I had, at some point, lived it. The moment I died, I became someone else in that era, at the same time as I was there before, so that I could create it EXACTLY as I wanted. Then I had this urge to talk to a lamppost. Thank God I didn’t, but if I did, I would have asked it things like “what do you want to be when you Change? What were you before you Changed? Was I you once…?” and so on and so on.

Somehow I ended up in a meat store, asking people where I belonged, but all they would tell me was “I don’t know hun, but it’s not here…” So I went next door to a restaurant, and sat down. I just wanted belonging. Then I thought to myself, “Well, maybe I don’t belong ANYWHERE…” So I sat and thought. Just thought. I felt trapped. The thought never occurred to me that it could be the drugs that made me feel like this. I still felt like I was missing something. I was cold, so I was missing heat… then I thought “Well, what IS heat..?” “The opposite of cold,” I told myself. “So, what is cold?” I asked, not knowing if anything was real, and how I came up with all these answers. “Not being warm.” I responded. “Ok, so what is warm?” “I suppose that warm is… not cold” And my thought’s kept going in circles like that, completely illogical, until I eventually confirmed that there were no answers, so therefore none of it could be real. “So what, did I make everything up?” I asked myself out of complete exasperation. “I guess so,” At this point, I was actually talking out loud, and the people in the restaurant were looking at me. But for some reason, this didn’t strike me as odd, and I continued asking myself questions anyway.

“Well, what about shapes…. did I make them up too?”

I started mumbling something along the lines of “Maybe everyone sees EVERYTHING differently, and warm, cold, up, down and everything else all have a different meanings to EVERYONE….” So I listened to conversations. They all seemed to use the same words as me… But still, their phrases somehow didn’t flow properly.

I heard some people talking about going home, away or “There”. “Where’s There,” I asked myself… “And what happens once you get There? Does it become Here?” I finally realized that you never ever reach There, because once you reach your so-called destination (There) it suddenly becomes Here. So, logically speaking, There doesn’t exist. So why does everyone want to go There so bad? What’s wrong with Here…? And that was my basic train of thought, until the paramedics came into the restaurant to put me in an ambulance. I remember asking the paramedic where we were going. “Are we going There?” I asked. “Well, I’m taking you to the hospital…” And he wouldn’t tell me why, or for how long.

So, we get to the hospital, and still no one tells me where I am really. I wondered if I was There yet. I felt sort of like I was lost in a book…the ending was already written, and I just had to wait and find out what it would be. So there I sat in the wheelchair, watching everyone, until they took me to a bed. They stuck these weird sticky things on me, but no one would tell me what they were. I thought that maybe I was just lost in a dream… that the Paramedics, Nurses and Doctors were all figures of my imagination, and I really didn’t need to be here. I tried telling the nurses that, but they just looked at me sadly, shaking their heads and telling me to quiet down and maybe sleep. I lay there for a while, just thinking…and I came to the conclusion that maybe I was God…. since I made everything up. So I closed m eyes, and thought about the Earth. It made no sense to me that it was round…. So I decided it would be flat. Just because. I made the south in the north, and the north in the south. I realized once again that time was useless. If time were gone, so would age. I would never have to be old. So, in my imaginary world that I created, time ceased to exist.

I looked at the walls and thought about my “ripple effect”. Maybe I had made those marks on them once. Maybe I was the one who built it even! I didn’t know. So I asked people. I asked them where There was. I asked them why I wasn’t There yet, but somehow only stuck in Here. They just smiled and said they didn’t know the answers.

At this point, I think I was dosing in and out of consciousness, occasionally screaming for a nurse, or more blankets. Thinking about it now, I must have been a real pain in the ass for the staff that evening.

I was at the hospital for God knows how long, when I decided I needed to get There. So I got up, asked where the washroom was, fixed my hair, and walked out, blankets and all. I ran to the road, when suddenly there was about 4 or 5 people trying to get me back in the hospital. I knew I couldn’t be in the hospital anymore, so I ran into the street. I decided that since I made everything up, I couldn’t get hurt, so it didn’t matter if a car hit me or not. Once again, thank God I didn’t get hit.

It was already dark out, probably close to 7 o’clock, when I walked into Dairy Queen, with my stylish “jacket” consisting of 4 blankets. The hospital is pretty close to my house, but I wanted to call home to say that I was on my way. As soon as I said I was on my way, the questions came. “Are you on drugs? Where were you? Why aren’t you home? Are you ok…?” and so on. I admitted to being on drugs, and being at the hospital, but I was on my way, so don’t worry. I left in a hurry to get home, somewhere safe.

I got home just after 7, still a little out of it. I left my blankets on the road, and went to the door. I told my family what I did (leaving out all the hallucinations) but that I was ok, and I learned my lesson. I cut off the hospital wristband, and then hastily jumped in the shower to clean myself. I was in there maybe 10 minutes when someone banged on the door, telling me to get out. I turn off the taps, and I’m told that the cops are here, ready to escort me back to the hospital. Of course I was against the idea, but rational thinking told me to do it. So in the car I go, all the way back to my hell. They put me back in the same bed. Needless to say, I didn’t like it, but I stayed. The nurses said they wanted me to stay for another hour or so, because I was still “under the influence”. That pissed me off, but I stayed. I even let them take my blood, which is a big deal since I’m terrified of needles.

In the end, I went home, and today (the day after) life has returned almost to normal… except that I’m not allowed out after school anymore. I’ve learned my lesson though I shall never do shrooms again, unless I have someone to keep me from going There. It really wasn’t worth the nightmare in the ER and the police escort to and from the hospital.

Exp Year: 2005ExpID: 40547
Gender: Female 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 1, 2006Views: 36,815
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Police / Customs (60), Mushrooms (39) : Various (28), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), First Times (2)

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