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Floating Through Space
Mushrooms & Cannabis
Citation:   Marakhan. "Floating Through Space: An Experience with Mushrooms & Cannabis (exp63343)". Erowid.org. Nov 26, 2007. erowid.org/exp/63343

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
2.0 g oral Mushrooms (tea)
  T+ 0:25 350 mg smoked Cannabis (plant material)
  T+ 1:00 2.0 g oral Mushrooms (tea)
BODY WEIGHT: 135 lb
General Info:

I am a 22 year old male.
Roughly 135 pounds.
I do not take any medication but take a Centrum multi vitamin daily.
Had eaten some pita and hummus about 2 hours before experience.
Experience date-March of 2007
Trip was undertaken alone

Setting:

My apartment. My apartment is the third floor of this very old house. The house itself is very trippy anhummus my living area. Lots of odd angled walls and contrasting colours. Lots of natural light. I have been living here for about 5 months and am very comfortable. This is the first place that feels like 'home' since I moved out of my parents. I keep my place fairly clean and before each trip I generally give it a good cleaning. It is, in all honesty, my favorite place to trip or at least start the trip.

Pre-Trip:

I had recently acquired some fungus and had eagerly been awaiting the right day to do some. I had been told they were pretty high quality. They were an off-white with blue marks around the caps and streaked on the higher part of the stems. The day finally came on a Monday. My first day off in forever, and god did it feel good not to have any worries or obligations. An entire day just for me.

Just a quick summary of my drug use as this seems to be the norm in reports these days. I would consider myself slightly experienced. I have smoked pot/hash daily for around a year and had smoked occasionally for a few years before that. I have done E about 4 times, though I plan not to use it anymore but I guess that is a different story. I have done ketamine twice and LSD once. I smoke salvia about twice a month and have been for a few months now and finally I have taken mushrooms about 7 times previous to this experience. I feel that I am beginning to get acquainted with mind altering substances but I am in no way an expert or master.

Now what was my intention for this trip. Two things were on my mind. One, I will be honest I wanted to trip. I wanted to see stuff. I wanted to have an adventure. I wanted to explore my mind. Two, I have had only one truly terrifying 'bad' trip and it was on mushrooms while I was alone. It also happened to be my first time taking mushrooms or any psychedelic. Just a note here, I would not recommend anybody take their first psychedelic by themselves. But then again I am not your Dad so do whatever feels right. I wanted to prove to myself, and to the mushrooms, that I was worthy of them and that I could in fact undertake a trip by myself. While these are not the best intentions I don’t feel that they were negative either.

Preparation:

I decided to make shroom tea. I had not tried making or taking shroom tea before but had heard it makes the trip more intense but that the experience would be a little bit shorter. I used my pot grinder to powder up just under 2g of the fungus. I do not know the exact measurement because I follow 'the rule of palm' When I still had a scale I measured out my general dose, a palm full of dried mushrooms. This usually comes out to just under or just above 2g's. I had a feeling that this palmful was a bit on the under side. I placed the powder into an empty teabag while the kettle was boiling my water. I was unsure whether placing the shrooms directly into boiling water would have some negative impact on the shrooms themselves so after the kettle boiled I let the water cool for a few minutes. I put two jasmine teabags into my mug along with the mushroom teabag and filled the mug with the not boiling but still extremely warm water. I covered the mug so that no heat could escape and let it steep for around 15 minutes.

Experience:

After the first hour I stopped keeping notes/track of time as I really wanted to dive into the experience.

0:00 I slowly start sipping the tea. It actually doesn’t taste that bad though I don’t really find the taste of shrooms as offensive as other people seem to. The jasime tea bags obviously helped mask the taste. I hold each mouthful in my mouth for a few seconds and swish it around hoping to speed things along.

0:10 Half the mug is gone. The skin around my head feels stretched tight. Like I have too much surface to cover with too little skin. I have experienced this before on the come up of mushrooms so I don’t worry about it though to be honest its not the most pleasant feeling in the world.

0:15 I feel great. My stereo is pumping out upbeat psychedelic rock and I am dancing around my room with a stupid grin on my face. There is still about a mouthful or two of the liquid left but for some reason I feel that I need to save it for a bit.

0:20 I am hanging up some posters on my wall. Full of energy. Full of smiles. The music is really making me feel great. I usually can’t handle music under the influence of shrooms but today it sounds great. I realize that this is probably mostly me just being in a good mood and not the shrooms. A placebo effect if you will. But I don’t care, I am in a great mood.

0:25 The tea is gone. I am relaxing in my comfort chair with my legs up on a leg rest. Nothing is really going on yet. So I decide to smoke a small bowl of some MJ. I get good pot. It isn’t the best pot in the world obviously but it does the trick and people usually ask where I buy it. I smoke a very small amount. 0.3-0.4g in my glass pipe. I draw the smoke deep into my lungs and hold it till I feel ready to burst.

0:45 Things are taking off now. I had been sitting in my chair listening to music when I noticed the change. I had been staring at my wooden door and I realized that I was staring at a very defined wooden face. I let out a laugh and smiled. It was beginning. The face on the door has changed now. It looks to me like an elfish girl dancing, she was around the same height as me. I know that it isn’t there and the visual distortion is weak but things are defiantly looking up.

1:00 It has been about 35 minutes since I finished the tea and music sounds orgasmic. I have two speakers aimed at my head and on at a fairly reasonable volume. But I feel like I am at a rock concert. Music has never sounded so good. I understand each note and why it was chosen. Many subtle parts of music that I never 'heard' or 'understood' before begin to stand out. I can’t believe that music made me feel weird on this drug before. I keep returning to the thought that music is the language of the gods.

Now for the next 30-40 minutes I just enjoy the trip. Nothing really note worthy happens. Pretty typical mushroom stuff. Visual distortions include objects changing dimensions and location in space. Faces easily appear out of patterns and colours are bright and vibrant. I find myself gapping out a bit and coming back to reality what feels like 10-15 minutes later but when I focus on the song I realize it has only been a few minutes. One thing I found interesting is that songs that I always thought would be awesome trip songs usually weren’t that great. Perhaps they just didn’t live up to my expectations.

Now some point in time around here I decided to redose, rule of palm was used, with again slightly less than 2gs. I follow the same preparation as before. Grind the mushrooms up and place them in an empty teabag. I gulped the tea down this time in only a few sips. I am very well researched in drugs but I obviously made a mistake here. My brain was under the control of the fungus. I believed that I would not get higher but only prolong this awesome high that I was having. It made perfect sense since I had been told that tea trips are shorter. 'Of course I want this to last longer I said to myself.'

My memory of things begins to get a bit hazy here. I have no idea how long I have been under the influence of the fungus. I look at my clock but it means nothing to me. I know that in reality those numbers dictate the course of my day, but right now they seem very unimportant. I am still sitting in my chair with my legs up and am relaxing with my eyes closed. I remember being surprised at the lack of colourful CEV's. My previous mushroom experiences have been filled with rapidly changing neon coloured CEV's. My first attempt to describe these CEV's to a friend was a psychedelic carnival with the best firework show in the universe, though that obviously does not do them justice. But today there was a blackness that was slowly moving and being altered by the music but I can’t really describe what it looked like. The best I can do is that it looked like how I feel after being on a rollercoaster for too long, which really makes no sense.

I thought alot about the characters in the book I had just finished reading. I felt very connected to them. I wondered where their lives would have taken them after the book had ended. I imagined meeting the main character out on the street. Would we be friends? Could we be friends? Would I still know everything about him and the events that had taken place? Did he perhaps read a book all about me and some experience in my life? Maybe my reality was just pages in a book somewhere. Or maybe my reality was a book that was just being written. What would happen when the book was finished? Would I die?

I remember around this time thinking about mushrooms and the usage of them. I had read shamans saying that they could no longer communicate with the mushrooms spirits. That the mushrooms no longer spoke their language. I felt bad for the shamans not being able to continue their practices. It hit me then that I was the reason they could no longer communicate with their spirits. It was me, the semi-recreational user of this sacred drug, that was ruining their culture. As this train of thought was going the music had changed to a slower somber song. I felt myself filling with sadness and my eyes snapped open.

What I witnessed was one of the best distortions I have experienced. I have these large windows with wooden frames that open inwards. So I opened my eyes to a giant window floating in the middle of my room. I realised that everything was floating. I was in space but it wasn’t strictly following the nongravity of space. Anything that sat on a surface, say my computer monitor, was hovering slightly off the desk and the room it self was slowly rotating over itself but everything was staying roughly where it should be. I felt like I was in an antigravity chamber. The best part was that I 100% believed it. I was floating, there was no doubt in my mind. This was incredible. I’m pretty sure I was laughing out loud at how amazing it was.

I looked up at my ceiling and it looked like it pavement rushing by outside of a car window. 'Where is my ceiling going?' I wondered. The room was really beginning to shift. Everything was either to big or to small to far or to close. I couldn’t help but laugh at everything. I was filled with love and happiness. At one point I remember wondering why there was an object that looked like a gamecube floating in space. I later realised that it actually was my gamecube.

This next part was the peak of my trip. I was still sitting in my chair but I was resting my head on the arm rest and looking at the wall. I reached my arm out and began to push against the wall. It felt like my arm was growing and shrinking at the same time. That feeling slowly shifted to me and my chair being pressed backwards by the force of my arm while the wall was being pushed away from me. I began staring at my hand. Nothing else in the world existed. My hand was the most amazing beautiful thing I had ever seen and it was slowly changing. My fingers got very long and slender. The alterations picked up here and my fingers turned into claws and then into curved daggers. And finally the fingers shrunk into animal looking claws covered in thick black hair. There was an amazing amount of detail. I could see chips out of the claws from using them to attack prey. Just like the floating distortion I fully believed it. My hands were and always had been claw like.

I closed my eyes and was catapulted into outerspace. There was still not CEV's to speak of. It was like infinite blackness. I was perceiving this information in a different way. I was seeing in 360%. And everywhere was dark. This was the universe. I was floating away. I felt like there was a wealth of information at my fingertips. If I fought I could maintain contact with my body, but why would have I wanted to. The music drifted off into the background. It sounded like it was worlds away. I don’t think this was an ego death or out-of-body experience but it was pretty close.

Since there were no visuals to distract me I was able to go deep into the depths of my mind. One primary personal issue was dealt with, but since it was so personal I don’t really feel comfortable talking about in this report. It would take to long to explain anyways and honestly I doubt anybody would care. What I will say is that I was able to come at the issue from a different angle. It was like I was somebody else looking at the problem and offering their solution. None of my personal emotions came into play. And when and if they did pop up they were easily pushed away as being pointless and a hindrance. After some indeterminate amount of time I felt myself returning. The music was getting very loud. And slowly I opened my eyes. But nothing looked familiar. I had forgotten what this reality looked like.

The music was becoming overwhelming at this point. It sounded like every note and sound was being jammed into my head with the force of a nuclear bomb. I was beginning to get a bit overwhelmed. The posters I had put up before were glowing and growing and seemed to be watching me, the faces on the posters were staring into my soul. Just like earlier everything was either to big or to small to far or to close. But I no longer was filled with happiness it was all beginning to look a bit sinister. I was not freaking out but I felt uncomfortable and jumped up from my chair to change scenery. The plan was to go out for a quick cig and maybe a short walk.

The quick change in position made me feel incredibly sick to my stomach. I did not, and well really could not, think that it was probably all the tea liquid sloshing around in my stomach/bladder. What I did think is that I had poisoned myself. A small hint of 'the fear' was creeping into me. If I was going to pass out or die I needed to get outside where the public would see me since I had no sitter to call the hospital. I managed to get outside and smoke a cig, which also was a bad idea as it just made me feel more sick. I took a piss in broad daylight right outside my flat and began walking.

Things looked extremely odd. I was still tripping pretty hard and I was under the impression that I was no longer in my 'reality.' I believed that while my consciousness was floating around the universe it had been transported to an alternate reality and placed in another version of me. I was not scared but more intrigued and wondered what differences this universe had from mine. To be honest this was probably fairly dangerous. I believed that my actions had little or no consequence. If I got hurt my consciousness would just return to my original reality. This seems to be a fairly good example of why having a sitter around is never a bad thing.

I find that if I’m having a bad time the mushrooms push me to leave my living area and get as far away as possible. Interestingly enough though if I am having a bad feeling during the come down I want to be nowhere else but my apartment. In either situations I always want to find a soothing female presence. Females seem to be able to immediately disarm a potentially negative trip for me. I walked for what felt like days but in reality was about 20 minutes to a nearby park. The walk was a bit intense. Everybody was staring at me and looked slightly altered. They were judging me and muttering under their breaths about how disgusting of a person I was. Sounds were extremely loud and colours dark and rich and very menacing. Obviously 'the fear' was beginning to control me. The only moment from the walk the I fully remember is being in a CD store and being very confused how I got there. I was staring at the rows of CDs and all of them had tiny faces that were watching me. I don’t remember leaving to store. Once I reached the park I convinced myself to sit down under a giant tree and try and relax. With my eyes closed and with deep breathing I was able to calm myself down.

I spent the remainder of the trip under this tree. The outside air, the sounds of the wind rustling the leaves and of the city around me all made me feel wonderful. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself for almost giving into the fear. As I began to come down I felt very, very small. The mushrooms had made me feel universal and my tiny human body felt pathetic and small in comparison to the mushroom body I had been inhabiting. My body was just to small to hold my consciousness in this state.

I ended up going to my parents for dinner that night and we had a pleasant enough evening though I did feel fairly sick but that will be discussed in the next section. Even 3 to 4 hours after the trip had ended and I felt fully down if I started at anything for a while it still seemed to shift slightly. Bright lights also really bothered my eyes.

Post-trip:

I did not get the afterglow that I usually get from mushroom trips. For the next week I felt toxic. Every time I ate my stomach was filled with intense pain and waves of nausea would sweep over me. My head felt cloudy and stretched and I had trouble focusing. These effects slowly diminished after about two weeks until I could no longer notice them. I believe my body just did not react well to the tea.

This is just an idea I had, so this is NOT fact, but perhaps the organs in my body that process liquid just cannot handle the mushrooms alkaloids. Or perhaps it was just the individual mushrooms I used. I do want to look into if shroom tea is perhaps worse for your body. I keep meaning to but something always comes up (like writing this report).

I also have not felt like smoking pot at all. I haven’t had a cig or any pot since then (almost 3 and 1/2 weeks now) and while I don’t think I am done smoking/blazing, I am pretty sure my daily habit is done. I am not really sure why this happened. Perhaps I had some 'realization' that I just can’t remember. I am not upset though. I have gone to a few parties/bars with friends and found myself to be more sociable (I am very shy) and to be honest having more fun and more involved. Perhaps my pot use, which I always used as a social aid, was really just holding me back.

This was def. not a bad experience. Despite the bit of fear and the negative after effects I am glad I was able to handle myself under the might of the mushrooms, even though a dosage of slightly less than 4g's is hardly a terrifying dose. The tea itself really did seem to make the trip more intense. I have undertaken similar dosage trips and even one high dose trip and I never felt that disconnected from my body. It’s too bad I had the negative reaction to the tea because I really did enjoy the ride. I don’t think I will be making shroom tea again just to be on the safe side.

From now on when using any psychedelic substance, even ones I am fairly comfortable with, I will have a sitter with me. I am confident that some small part of me was aware that getting hurt would have had a negative impact on me but I really don’t want to take the risk. And the last thing the drug community needs is another person getting seriously hurt and more negative media attention.

One final note, the decision I reached on my personal issue has been impacting my life in an overall positive way.

Exp Year: 2007ExpID: 63343
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 26, 2007Views: 68,519
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Mushrooms (39) : General (1), Music Discussion (22), Glowing Experiences (4), Alone (16)

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