DOSE:

2.5 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

Background:
I am a 23 year old female, weighing 120 pounds and generally in good health. I try to be as conscious as I can be of what I eat in regards to carcinogens, etc. I do not generally consume any recreational substance- I value sobriety and right-mind decisions above all. I had been taking methylphenidate (40g) daily for 1 month prior to this experience for work, although I do not feel they had an impact on this experience and I mention them only for completeness. The previous 3 days before the mushroom trip were methylphenidate-free.

I have been under the influence of “magic mushrooms” many times in my life during the past 2-3 years. Every time has led to some sort of profound “re-birth” and new understanding about my own personal life issues- except this time. It sounds pretty awful, crass, and cheesy- but I want to share my experience in curiosity if anyone has ever experienced such an event, and because by writing it down I really can accept that it actually happened. Also, there are many more men writing their experiences than women, so I have to represent.

Substance and Dosage:
Me and a close male friend (I’ll refer to him as E. from now on) split about 5 grams of dried mushrooms. I have no idea about their true origin, but had tested it 2 times before this occasion and felt they were of average strength. I was worried because the portions were on the smaller side, and it was my first time doing them with that friend who I have always had strange feelings for. I wanted him to be totally affected to watch him (in a non-creepy way!). He is 6 feet tall and weighs 150lbs.

Preparation:
The mushrooms were purchased dried from the beginning. As mentioned previously, I have no idea about their specific classification or how they were grown or treated. The guy who sold it to me went out of the way to call my home phone number back to ask if they were okay. Who does that??

It’s always the best idea to shower before the mush hits- that way if I want to be naked, start sweating, touching myself or others, then everyone can be as comfortable as possible. It is never a good idea for a girl to wash her hair pre-mush, unless she has enough time to dry it or it dries quickly. It’s awful to have to accept conditions put upon me when I have no other choice. Of course an iPod breaks out, and cleaning of the room ensues.

Intention and Ingestion:
Me and E. separated the small portion I had remaining from my previous trips onto a dinner plate, and made sure to cat-lick up the crumbs and dust. We have been friends since the fall of 2008, and for some reason always felt the need to keep in touch, at least once a year. We had spent our first year talking for hours after class where I would skip class just to be able to see him. I sat next to him in the class we shared- I could not control the ways in which I had to be around him- to the point of creepy-waiting for him outside of class to try to spark conversation before we even initially exchanged words. We had also been heavily speaking in the phone and emailing for the last 2 months- full of deep honesty about our views (strictly platonic) and now we were 2 kids with really compatible personalities cut off from the rest of the world, with 4 years of pent-up thoughts- focused on each other, and on a psychoactive substance. We knew we were getting on more dangerous territory.

Pre-history:
Me and E. had been camping and traveling around the Quebec, Canada region for 3 days before the trip, and 3 days after. We had not been eating or sleeping normally due to bad weather and some strange occurrences on the road. There were obvious signs that we were both into each other, but fear gets the best of things sometimes. We had just gotten out of a sticky situation involving getting lost after 1AM in the pitch-dark while walking to a park that ended up not even being there in the end. We stopped in front of a house and asked a man for directions and information. He offered to let us sleep in his yard and continue on in the morning or drive us into town. I agreed to sleep there out of innocence, and then was told by E. that it could be unsafe since we did not know if the guy could be dangerous. I start getting paranoid and knocked on the guy’s door. He invited me in and quickly shut the door behind me. I can only imagine what went on in E.’s head. I tell the guy that instead we’ll go into town and see his eyes a bit bothered and dull when I mention it. I don’t know if I should take that as a sign that he’s factually dangerous or weird.

We wait outside for the ride. The whole time we’re planning how E. is going to kill the guy if he tries to do anything funny. In hindsight all this is funny, but at the time I honestly thought we would be in a newspaper in the coming days.

We get in and the guy starts driving like a maniac. We don’t know what to do- we can’t do anything. He stops at a bank for money then continues to drive (not maniacally anymore). We see red flashes- a cop is signaling us to stop. No one is wearing their seatbelt and we rush to do so. My first thought is about the mush- I was freaking out thinking they would search the car. The cops come and take some information and tell the guy that his license was expired and that he couldn’t drive. (Why would a guy with an expired license even drive half-crazy?). In any case, while they’re sorting their official papers, I quickly and secretly grab the baggie of mush, wrap it into a ball, and push it into my “lady compartment.” Relief. They won’t find shit on me. The cops end up driving us to a place to camp, and we really believe that divine powers were at work to save us from that guy and whatever fate he was bringing to us. It’s nicer to think that way, anyway.

Setting:
We had just finished a 6-hour hike into a very large national park in the Gaspé region to Land’s End. There had been a warning about a bear and cub on the trail we were heading towards, and even though we should have turned back, we continued on. We were staying in a yurt (if you never have, you must) in the park, and used that as the base of operations. For some reason, on mush, we never really left the yurt, or as it was referred to during the trip, “the bubble.”

The owner of the yurt came by to check up on the place while we were starting to feel it coming on. I was in the shower so I didn’t get to see what happened, but E. assures me it was horribly funny trying to pretend to act normal, and that paranoid thought came, as always, of “they know!”

I’ll describe our temporary living situation in more detail:
We walked a few kilometers (under an hour) to the national park Forillon and were told that the yurt rental office was not within the park itself, and that we would have to back-track another hour back from where we came. The day was starting to look grim. I explained to the guard in the booth that we were on foot and didn’t have a phone to use. He took sympathy on us and called the office. The woman who would rent us the yurt expressed sympathy that we were on foot and agreed to drive into the park to deliver the keys to the yurt. She also mentions that she would not normally do such a thing but seeing as we were on foot.. She also states that she was painting her cottage at the moment and apologises for how shitty she will look upon arrival. All of these factors are making me smile and have relief for the future condition of humanity.

We’re told that the park would be closed for the entirety of our stay- meaning if we had arrived at any later time, we would not have been able to rent the yurt and sleep in a cold, bear-and-wolf infested park. Fuck. That. Shit. After 10 minutes, she arrives to the park and drives us to the site. We pay ($235 for 2 nights) and put our things inside, then ask for directions to a general store for milk, eggs, etc. She expresses that it’s a bit far on foot and that she has a lot of time at the moment, so she’d be glad to take us there and back. We go and come back. She gives us a free box of wood. We appreciate her funny, little character and feel lucky. The yurt itself is a large, round room with a wooden ceiling, with a large sky-light, and 2 extremely large windows- complete with all amenities, in the middle of a quiet forest. We were in heaven.

Me and E. are nature-lovers- so suffice to say, our setting was ideal, in fact it would be hard to find a better setting.

Mindset:
It had been about a month since I had taken mushrooms. My last psychedelic trip before this one was a low dose, average trip with my younger sister (it was her first time). I specifically didn’t consume much in fear of something bad happening. Maybe that wasn’t the best decision, but in reality it’s better safe than sorry.

Physically I have been a bit run down recently, being a month on methylphenidate, planning/cooking for that camping trip, working, forgetting to eat, and dealing with my own broken marriage. Safe to say the week of going away was a bit necessary.

The Experience:
After about 30 minutes I felt it coming on. I estimated 45 minutes to an hour, so I was in the shower when everything started to melt and glitter just a little bit. I didn’t think to compensate for having been eating only enough to keep us alive during the trip- and living a life of walking at least 10 kilometers a day. E. came to get me in the bathroom, and I greeted him as a child-form of myself. He liked her, as far as I could see. We went into the yurt. I started pacing around the dinner table while he went out to get something. I melted onto the floor, started feeling extremely cold, grabbed a blanket, and transformed into a little blue ball in the middle of the floor.

He returned and started getting worried about my inability to come out of the blanket. I truly felt terribly cold and incoherent. I could see seeds of “bad trip” thoughts coming onto him. He came down to the floor with me and took the blanket off of me, and tried to put me into a different mental direction. At the time it was mean, but in reality, necessary.

I told him that if he felt the need to go outside and wander that he should feel no guilt about it. He expressed no desire to do so- especially not in the state, and he seemed to want us to stay together (forever).

Sound started fading in and out in waves. Lights and walls started dancing, and slowly E. started physically changing right in from of me. It seemed as though he was a younger, less real version of himself (kind of like a retarded cousin, haha) but I knew it was happening to me too. He also looked like a grasshopper when he tried to get too close. Safe to say I pushed his ass away. I didn’t know how to break it to him that I was in love with the other, better, un-drugged E. and that I meant no offense for the current one. We agreed that we were in a sort of teenaged, immature version of ourselves and tried to think of ways to kill each other off to get to sobriety, to get to our right-minded selves, which we held to such high esteem. We started taking on the roles of being the children of our true selves, which we now refer to as “the kids.” The kids started to explain and rationalize as much as they could about their parents. They decided (like kids do) to leave all the work for the parents to sort, though acknowledged sympathy for the big responsibilities that would need to be handled in the future. They knew that we knew. The kids also left us a note. I wish they had left a picture.

He told me he was really attracted to me, and to my smell. We had never talked like that before, so it was really interesting to me. And even though we were in a mischievous state with all the possibility to kiss, touch, and have sex- we knew that we were fucking kids and that all that should be left to the adults to handle. We also didn’t go outside in the thought of something bad happening. It is refreshing to see how responsible our most primitive and lazy forms were. Hopefully our actual kids have these sorts of mind waves (and of course don’t think about touching each other, haha).

I had told him the night before that I was afraid of admitting being in love with him on mushrooms, and that I didn’t want that to be the setting of the first time I said it to him. He was very unresponsive. I spent the night before worried that he did not have feelings for me- especially not to that extent. He then told me he was unresponsive in complete, silent agreement. And even though I truly knew all of this, the fear and hope was too much to lose and I was in a constant inner struggle. Just like all these years.

We talked about what we wanted in life. We already knew we were totally compatible in wanting a simple, village sort of environment for the future. The more we talked and agreed on the same levels that we knew we already shared, visually I could see heaven (or a perfect place where things could co-exist), tangible packages of bitterness and disappointment appeared (to be left behind), and talks about a symbolic gun to protect our bubble came about. Life as it should have stayed hundreds of years ago, in its purest form. Truly simple- love, a man, a woman, a child, a home, and a gun.

I asked E. why he seemed to be keeping things in during the camping trip, and the immature version of E. started talking for the right-mind E. about being afraid to express emotions, and that every time I mentioned (in my right mind) what I wanted in the future with him, that he was already there.

It was clear that we didn’t need drugs at all and that it more confused the things we already knew. We had a lot of waiting to do and were excited to become the “real” versions of ourselves to properly be able to talk, touch, etc. We fixed everything in a matter of hours.

We spent a lot of time talking and (me crying) about how people love to complicate life as filler in time, and wished that people did things efficiently, rationally, and practically. If everyone just did as they truly wanted and felt, then things would be that much simpler. They love to self-inflict and perpetuate unrealistic rules that they have trouble following.

We’re normal. That’s the moral of the story. We live, feel, learn, and love. And what could be more commonplace? With time he visually started looking more and more mature, and was becoming the E. that I was waiting on. I could only hope I wasn’t the shitty me while he was a better E. But hey. He went out to find wood to keep us warm, and I got water, and we ate beef, and eggs, and cheese. And there couldn’t have been a more perfect way to try to transition back into real life. Of course we weren’t our real selves yet, but at least we deserved to be able to hold each other respectively with recognition.

The Aftermath:
A day later we were in a graveyard in Quebec City. A man eating milk and cereal from a large tub of yogurt came up to us and started talking about god, the cemetery, and ourselves. He said, “I don’t believe in coincidences” while superimposing personalities about me and E. out loud to us. And he was right with all the personality traits that he put onto us. It was creepy as hell. Even he knew about our heaven.

Final Thoughts:
It made me realize that fear should never dictate the way you live. It was the first time I have ever had the same trip as another person, even in hindsight. And the first time the sober relationship was much more profound than the drug-induced one. Aside from the drugs, and weird events that happened during the entire trip, I’ve never believed I’d found my soul mate until now.
Isn’t that cheesy and weird as hell? Hopefully I can update this in a few years and see how cool/fucked up things became. Sorry that I had to be a stereotypical woman talking so much about love and 'soul mates' but it had to be done.

C.Antone

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 97650
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: Jan 15, 2020	Views: 1,260
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