DOSE:

3.5 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

I've done a few types of drugs; only smoking and doing ecstasy a few times, but I had never thought of doing anything more. My boyfriend has experimented with many things, and he'd told me about his times on acid and shrooms. Being that we're both artists and appreciate colors, shapes, patterns, and nature in general, he suggested that I think about trying it sometime with him.

I'd spent a good amount of time reading the experiences of others to get a feel for what it would be like. They were very helpful, and helped to ease some fears I had. When I felt that I was confident enough to try them, I asked friends who were up in Vermont to buy as much as they could with $60. I wanted to surprise my boyfriend with them. They brought down an eighth for each of us; the mushrooms were mixed with chocolate. I was stoked; I'd heard how bad the shrooms can taste so having them in chocolate was awesome. Plus I'd heard shrooms from Vermont would be good, so I couldn't wait to do them once I got my hands on them.

I got the chance last night. Most of the people at my college had moved out, and all that were left were graduating seniors. We had set up my room right before eating them: 2 blacklights, facing a wall that we pinned up some tie dyed tshirts on; a blacklight responsive Led Zeppelin poster with a rainbow stairway leading up to the zeppelin; my boy's a surfer so he put up some posters from his magazines of huge breaking waves; my computer was set up with winamp and the visualizations was set to 'ambience: random'... I made a playlist of Incubus, Radiohead, the new Beck cd, the song Echoes by Pink Floyd which is 11 some minutes long and beautiful, and RAS COMMAND who is awesome to listen to... some other ambient music I'd heard was good to listen to like Tangerine Dream, the Orb, but I found the other first bands to be more amazing to listen to. I had a tiny glowstick I'd yanked from my younger bro, which became my absolute favorite as the night went on; a set of blue christmas lights in the icicle style draped on top of the closet; a lit candle on the floor; a movie of Pink Floyd's concert 'Phases' that we watched out in the living room. I tried to be well prepared for whatever it was I was going to feel.

My boyfriend and I ate them around 11pm and set off to take a walk while they kicked in. We split up the chunks of chocolate into what appeared to be equal amounts. We saved what was left, drank them with some orange juice (because we thought it was supposed to enhance visuals with the vitamin c, I'm not sure since I've never taken them without it) I was a little nervous, and curious; I somewhat was expecting them to make a reality happen that I wouldn't be able to control. He was excited since he's done them before... plus happy as hell since they were a present to him. We then took a walk to buy cigarettes, then kept walking around outside holding hands for awhile. He said, 'As long as we are together we are safe.' This would come to reassure me later in the night, very important to feel safe and that you can trust who you are with.

The sky was everchanging; the moon had a lunar eclipse happening, and was being hidden and from time to time peeking through the clouds; the clouds were bright and looked yellow from my college's lights. We sat down at the top of a hill at an elementary school which overlooked a soccer field, and we just sat close together, with him behind me holding me, while waiting for them to take effect.

I started to feel a creeping into my neck about 40 minutes; lights started to look a little brighter, I almost heard a sort of whispering buzz in the air, and my stomach felt a little queasy. We looked down at the field and it looked like the center line of the soccer field was starting to slowly move, waving. We were both like, 'Do you see that?!' So we walked down the hill to check it out. I lost interest quickly because up close it just looked like whoever did the center line did a crappy job; I started to walk around the field while my boyfriend stayed at the waving line... I looked down at my feet and I saw the grass looked different. I did a double take and realized that there seemed to be patterns in the grass. Dandelion leaves seemed to be in perfect clusters of six... spreading out as though they were making tips of hexagons. I did a few slow circles looking down at my feet and sure enough, there seemed to be patterns everywhere in the grass. I told my boyfriend, 'Hey, it looks like the grass is in a pattern!' He didn't see it yet; he wasn't tripping as quick as me because I hadn't eaten much whereas he'd eaten a big dinner. (hence where the 'eat little or nothing' helps thanks to those who told their stories.)

I wanted to go back to our apartment to see how our trippy room would look now that the shrooms were starting to take effect. We walked around the school some more, then made our way back to the apartment. In the hallways of my apartment building, workers had attempted to repaint the walls, and there are sort of pale green splotches where the painters took crumpled up fabric, dipped the paint in it, and patted it on the walls. I looked at the walls and saw the paint shapes turn into many koi fish. I began to laugh and we walked up the stairs to my room; I saw patterns in the bricks of the stairwell, on the stairs, all the way up to my room.

In my room, while my boyfriend smoked a cigarette on our balcony (we're on the fourth floor), I suddenly started laughing... I thought about what it must be like for people underneath of our balcony... they have to deal with all sorts of crazy stuff, like someone spitting off of it and what if it landed on them down at the bottom... my thoughts started to become hilarious to me, and I couldn't stop laughing. I got caught up in my moment of what I was thinking about and it was so funny... funnier than anything else I had seen or heard in a while. I liked this aspect of shrooms... I felt happy, giddy, and amused.

We came inside and he put on the Pink Floyd movie... in the dark, I looked around and all I saw were dots. It looked like perfectly spaced dots, and all around them were spiraling circles... like a fast moving pinwheel... they were a rainbow color, and I just reveled in looking around the room. The Pink Floyd concert came on the tv, and I heard the music but I just wanted to shut my eyes and feel the music. He told me to get comfortable for the concert, so I laid my head in his lap and just shut my eyes. I saw more rainbow colors and shapes in my head; I heard and saw the music as it played. It was now about 1:30am or so. I was fully enjoying listening to the music with my eyes shut, and my boyfriend laid down and I laid on top of him. I turned my face away from the tv and towards the couch, and he just held me as I sank into my trip. It was soothing, amazing, and I didn't want the music to stop.

He wanted to turn off the concert (he can't listen to Pink Floyd for a long period of time for some reason) so we went into our glowing room. I went into the bathroom for a minute; there is a huge wall of a mirror, and since I had been told to not look into the mirror at my face, being that it could be strange if one's face was to start moving or changing, I instead looked at my shirt. It began to subtly move, and I was in awe. My boyfriend opened the door and got me, and we went into the room. We cuddled on the bed; the music playing sounded so beautiful, yet the music was at times skipping or sounding as though it was underwater. I wasn't sure if this was the actual computer or if my auditory senses were becoming altered, and my boyfriend said he was hearing the same strangeness I was. We watched the visualizations on the computer and the tie dye on the wall... as I watched, the tie dye began to move around to the music. Colors blended into one another, and I saw faces within the tie dye. The faces changed places, shifted around, danced with the music. None of this was scary; it was all fascinating. We saw shapes in the waves of the surfing posters; one wave looked like a big fish, another seemed to come closer to me and become in focus as I stared at it from the bed.

Around 2am I got up and got my glow stick; as I broke it, I was amazed that the concept that I was holding light. This is where my mind began to think deeper about things, meanings, concepts. I watched as the chemicals swirled together inside the mini glowstick, mixing and making instantaneous light, and I felt as though it was unthinkable that I was the one able to hold this capsule containing light. As I moved it around I began to see trails; I must have done this for about five minutes in utter amazement. The glowstick and my hand were in fluid motion, and I could see the patterns I was creating in the air. A flicking of a lighter was also amazing now; I could see the flames remain in the air after it was quickly lit and unlit.

As I sat with my boyfriend in awe in our room, we somehow got into a conversation about being together in this atmosphere. I said a comment about how he cares about me more than I realize, and he replied in a short 'yeah...' This is where I would give advice to others, DO NOT TALK ABOUT WHAT MAKES YOU INSECURE! If you have a problem, are angry, emotionally unsteady, upset, anything beyond a normal feeling... I'd advise not to trip until you're feeling more like yourself. He and I had some problems a few months ago and I'm slightly insecure about where we stand at times, how strongly he does feel for me. I know he cares immensely for me, but at times insecurity still manages to set in. From his what seemed to be careless response, my mind began to spiral inward. I suddenly began to panic... thinking, 'Does he care? No he doesn't as much as I think... Wait, we're not meant to be together. He isn't the one. I'm holding him back. Where is that other person. Why am I with him. what am I going to do...' These thoughts all came at lightening speed, almost all at once. It was overwhelming.

I began to cry before I realized it, silent tears falling as my mind raced on. I wanted to tell him what I was thinking, what was wrong, but I couldn't put the words together because I was thinking so fast. I then slipped into thinking about my father and me, and I pictured a father with a child in a perfectly happy place. And I felt sad because I never realized what that was like as a child.

My boyfriend realized I was crying and began to pull me out of my spiral. He suggested we go for a walk, to go outside, to get away from this (he doesn't like emotional breakdowns very much and tends to tiptoe around these sitations); but this break enabled me to try to verbalize to him what I was thinking. I'm one who likes to dive into what I feel and think and come out afterwards. I tried explaining that I saw a happy father and child, and I didn't know what it was like to feel that. I tried to pour out what I was thinking. Everything I was feeling suddenly felt ok to say. I knew I was upset, but it was ok to be upset. I knew I had a rough childhood, but it was ok to have lived that way. I am who I am because of these things, and I was a unique and beautiful individual. Things became crystal clear as though there was a purpose to all of my thoughts. I began to feel the flow of the universe in a way... that there were eternal truths and it was alright to feel all of these emotions at the same time. It was a higher state of being rather than in every day life, where one usually feels one emotion at a time.

My boyfriend tried to be there for me as best he could, listening to me as I tried to get my thoughts into words, and he then laid me back onto the bed, holding me and telling me how much he loved me, that I was his soulmate; that he had been a loner wandering for some time and he was complete when he found me. This calmed me down with the reassurance and I felt the confidence and compassion coming over me. As for advice in this light, if someone seems to be getting upset and emotional, I would reassure them that you care about them and they mean very much to you. I'm not sure if that is what someone would need when they are withdrawing emotionally inwards as I was, but it helped me immensely and I was calm, able to enjoy the trip again.

As I laid there with him, he was on his back and I was on his side, laying on my stomach with my arm over his chest. My tie dyed shirt began to blend with the picture on his shirt. I would move my shirt to a different color, and the picture on his shirt would absorb this color as well. after a while I shut my eyes, and saw a tessalation repeating of interlocking fish, glowing a sort of rainbow glow and pulsating as though they were alive. After a few minutes of looking inward and seeing this, I hugged my boyfriend closer and looked up at him quickly, and seeing him happily enjoying the trip, I shut my eyes again. This time it brought me to a dark place; not a scary place, just a calm one where it felt as though I could slip away and go walk into this dark place... to the bottom left was a dark pathway, to the top right was light as though it was the sky. I gazed at this for a minute, then opened my eyes again.

I then turned to watch the tie dye and relax. I felt myself coming down from the trip, and I listened to Radiohead while just enjoying what had all just happened. At this time my boyfriend and I were able to start to talk about how we had felt throughout the entire trip; it was about 4am when we started to really feel ourselves again. We talked until the sun came up about what we had learned about each other; how although he likes to 'let things ride' I'm sometimes the one that will apply the brakes so that he doesn't cruise through a red light. But in this we find harmony, and we ride together occasionally stopping. We talked in depth about our astrological signs and how the stars and what we were born under seemed to fit our personality exactly... if it was any other sign, it wouldn't have made sense about who we are. We pointed out what we had seen in the pictures to the other when we were in our trip and although together, our minds were taking separate paths. We bonded, we understood one another.

I tried to explain how doing this made me realize that under the influence, it unlocks doors in my mind that I never realized were locked, or there to begin with. It allows me to feel different emotions all at one time. I have to say that I can truthfully admit that I feel as though I'm a changed person. While driving my boyfriend home I found myself saying 'Thank you' and 'I love you' more than ever before. I found that I appreciated what I have in my life, and what surrounds me, because of this experience. I would like to trip again and have an entire experience outside in nature, because I think I withdrew inside once I was in the room and I had a chance to think about things that bothered me. I found something in this experience, a door that was opened, that truly spoke to me. I would not have found it had I not taken the chance to experience this.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 23808
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 5, 2005	Views: 20,100
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Mushrooms (39) : First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)