DOSE: T+ 0:00	3.5 g	oral	Mushrooms	(dried)
T+ 1:30	1 hit	inhaled	Nitrous Oxide	(gas)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

We were just three proximal planets, drifting in space. We could communicate with each other perfectly, and though we had differences, we were also very similar. Everything worked as normal. And then our planets were slowly exploded. This is where I can no longer speak for the others.

The pieces of my planet drifted beautifully apart. And then the pieces were quickly blown up into dust, and the dust was shattered into atoms, and the atoms were ripped apart into pure energy. The energy was shot to all corners of the universe, and there it stayed for a few moments, leaving me in a state of omnipresent non-existence.

The energy then gathered together to form atoms, and the atoms reformed dust, and the dust compiled to make small pieces of my planet again; the pieces remained strewn across the universe. And then my awareness had to soar through the universe and gather the pieces, examine them, figure out what they were, how they fit into my being, how they served me, if they were good or bad, and if I needed them. Luckily, the universe had been brought into my friend W's house, so this only took about four hours. I left some of those pieces drifting out there in space, deemed unnecessary or bad. Other pieces I modified, and still others I returned to their normal place, free of change. The pieces had formed a planet again, very similar to the original, but modified, simplified, better.

That was all just an analogy, but it perfectly describes what happened to me and, apparently, my two friends J and W when we took an eighth of an ounce of each.

It was a Saturday night, and the night before we had all been up late at a chill party with some other friends at W's house, smoking weed. We went to bed late, so I didn't have quite enough sleep. In addition, the previous week had been extremely stressful, and I was worn out. Nonetheless, I was seriously stoked about being able to have an eighth of shrooms, since I had only ever tried a sixteenth before with my friend J. The effects from a sixteenth were mild, but we really enjoyed it and wanted to try a full dose; we certainly got more than we bargained for.

At 7:40pm, we started our journey. All of these times are rough guesses, since I didn't keep track of time beyond the occasional incomprehensible glance at a clock.

T+0:00. We each ate an eighth of an ounce of mushrooms. There were as many caps as stems (by volume), so we got a good dose.

T+0:20. At about this time, W, who had never tried mushrooms before, got his first effects. He had held the mushrooms in his mouth longer than either J or I did. They were mild, but he could tell something was definitely up.

T+0:45. J and I can tell something is going on in our heads too! A bit nervous and excited. I was really hoping for a journey of self-exploration and -discovery, and I was in a great mindset despite the stressful week. I was relaxed, and ready to roll with anything that came my way. I had the feeling that the mushrooms are my friends. I still do. J, on the other hand, was hoping to get superpowers and delusions of grandeur. He's been watching Heros while high lately. I thought that was kind of a waste of Nature's gift of shrooms, but hey, to each his own. I don't know what W's expectations were, but by this point, he was really feeling it. He was lying on his floor screeching for about 10 or 15 minutes, and wouldn't be quiet.

T+1:00. About this time I was getting towards the peak. J and I had decided to go down to the kitchen to make some tea before we were incapable of it, and we left W up in the bathroom to vomit, after he assured us that he'd be OK. I know that sounds irresponsible, but we made sure he was well situated first. Plus, we weren't going to be gone very long. And he was enjoying throwing up. He said it felt great.

At this point, trying to recount the time is pointless, since it's all kind of a psychedelic, timeless blur. I remember the order of events however, so I'll just say that from here on out.

After we all were up, the tea was ready. J and I headed back down to the kitchen after checking on W, ready for some tea. We didn't make it there. I saw the carpet morphing and changing, and the colors and patterns were beautiful. I fell to the floor to examine the carpet, and got sucked into it. J was in the room with me, but I don't know what he was doing. We stayed on the carpet for a while, and when I finally decided to get up and get some tea, I jumped up and sprinted to the kitchen without even thinking about it. The energy was awesome! I had decided to do something, so I DID it. Well, I tried to. I got there and couldn't figure out what I needed to do to get tea. Finally J and I decided that we needed mugs, so we got some. But how to get the tea out of the pot into the mugs? We couldn't figure that out for a while. Eventually we decided to pour it, but I needed a strainer. Couldn't find one, so I finally tried pouring, after maybe a half hour total of tea-based deliberation. I spilled everywhere and gave up.

And then we found the whipped cream in the refrigerator. I snatched it up in awe and ran up to W's room, screaming along the way that I was going to nitrous myself. I had been hoping for this. J had too. We got up to W's dark room and joined him. Sitting on the floor, I prepared myself. Up to this point, my planet had slowly exploded and the pieces were drifting beautifully apart.

I took as large a hit of nitrous as I could hold in my lungs, and as I came up on it, I fell over backwards. The pieces of the planet were blown up into dust, and the dust was shattered into atoms, and the atoms were ripped apart into pure energy. The energy dissipated to the very edges of the universe.

I fell backwards from my sitting position into what I can only call a gravity well. There was depth, but no light, no J or W, no room, no anything. Even I did not exist. All that happened was that the energy of my ex-atoms formed beautiful, symmetric patterns above me, and danced and played with me. I remained in this state of omnipresent non-existence for what I am sure was only a minute, since nitrous doesn't last long. But there was no time inside the gravity well. As I slowly came back down from the nitrous, I could sense that there was a world around me, and my sense of existence returned. However, I was still removed from the world. J's and W's words echoed into infinity for me, and when I tried to speak back to them, my own senseless sounds followed their voices out into the void.

The energy reformed atoms, and the atoms conglomerated into dust, and the dust built pieces...

When I could finally stand up, the whole universe was inside W's house. There was no outside world for me or any of us. I don't know what happened to J when he did the nitrous – even he doesn't remember. I could guess that it was a similar state of oblivion, but I'm in no position to make such an assumption. W didn't do any nitrous, which was probably good, since in the past he's shown himself to not be able to handle things as well as J and I can.

Eventually we went back downstairs again, and we ran around the house screaming, postulating, exploring. At one point J went to look for food (for some reason his appetite just can't be satisfied), and the next thing I knew he was running through the house trying to find me screaming, “EVAN! TASTE! TASTE!” Actually, it was more of a bellow. He had found a jar of some kind of jelly and was eating it with his fingers. All inhibitions gone (I just didn't know what to feel inhibited about – that part of my brain was lost in space), I stuck my finger in and took a taste. It was a miniature explosion of sugary, psychedelic cinnamon. It was a very red flavor. Ha ha, that actually makes sense to me now! I have no idea what kind of jelly it really was, but I don't think it was anything like cinnamon for some reason. I like the texture of the jelly even more, and so I poked and stroked the jelly for a few minutes with my forefinger.

A bit later on, I decided to try drawing since I was seeing all these cool patterns. I would look at the blank page and see lines on it, and so I would trace them. I was rediscovering lines. At one point I even rediscovered the best way to hold my pencil. I would also make rhythm with the lines. Everything was so absorbing. All the time I was thinking, examining the pieces of myself that I had managed to retrieve from the edges of the universe. I thought about my possessions. Why am I so attached to them? I asked W and J if I could get naked, and that didn't make sense to them, so I restated my question: “Can WE get naked?” For some reason I thought that would make more sense. Good thing we're really good friends.

Anyway, I kept my pants on, but removed my shirt. That's better! J ran back in from the kitchen with a small can of pineapple juice. He took a taste of it and I saw that it was good, so I reached out for the can too. I took a single sip and the taste exploded in my mouth! This wasn't like the jelly, this was like dynamite! The taste was so extreme that I spewed all of the juice right back out in surprise, all over myself, J, and W's carpet. We were covered in pineapple juice, but I didn't know if that mattered or not. I asked W and J if it did, and they didn't know either.

Did I mention that we had all been crying all over each other well before and up to that point? For some reason, my eyes had started leaking a while back, and then I just started crying. J and W did too. And it wasn't a bad thing! It was a great thing! It felt really good and cleansing for some reason, very comforting. We had been leaking body fluids in general. I couldn't stop drooling, and my nose was running like mad. At one point, I just spat all over the place and blew my nose into thin air, apologizing to W, saying that I just had to get that out of my mouth and nose. So actually, were were all covered in pineapple juice, drool, and tears. And it really just wasn't a problem.

I remember that I took a piss a few times, and that was a great feeling. So relieving, so primal, so deeply satisfying. At one point, after taking a piss, I decided that I would go in W's sister's room (we were alone in the house, by the way) so that I could sit in the quiet dark and listen to my thoughts and watch the CEVs. I walked out of the bathroom and made a left, heading for her room, but I made a left too soon (it was dark in the hall and I couldn't see), and I walked into a cabinet that had a broom in front of it. No matter for my brain! I just decided that it was his sister's room and proceeded to wedge myself between the broom and cabinet. I then wrapped my arms around the cabinet as far as I could and really wedged myself in there. It was a very comforting place to be! I felt extremely safe and happy. W came up the stairs after a minute and saw me. He asked what I was doing and I replied, “I'm in your sister's room!” He laughed and turned on the light, and imagine my surprise to find myself hugging a cabinet! Again, though, I didn't feel stupid – it had been a beautiful experience.

A few hours after liftoff, J and I decided we wanted to take showers (this had been one constant peak so far, by the way). I eventually decided not to, but J did. He shut the bathroom door and W and I heard water running. We were talking about something, and we started wondering what J was doing. I guess he could hear us, because he yelled out, “I'm building a god damn consciousness!” This was hilarious for several reasons. Besides the obvious, I had been thinking the same thing at the same time: I had been standing in front of the mirror, examining my muscles, trying to figure out how they fit into my personality and served me. I had the thought that I was rebuilding my consciousness.

J had been doing similar things all night. As he later described it to me, he had been shattered into multiple personalities. Apparently he had as many as 10 other personalities in his head with him – I believe this, since I frequently heard him having full-on conversations and arguments with himself. He was reassimilating the personalities into a single consciousness, whereas I had had all sense of self destroyed and had to rebuild it all into one personality, one consciousness. Anyway, after this, J called me into the bathroom – he wanted to talk. I walked right in. So what if I saw him naked? All taboos had been abolished. I sat on the toilet and we had ourselves a conversation!

By that point, we were off the peak a bit and were capable of talking to each other. Prior to this, we were like alien lifeforms to each other. We would shout at each other, trying to have conversations and find some companionship out in the void of the universe. It was lonely out there. But we just didn't speak the same language, so to speak, and we could never really understand each other. At one point W called our friend D, and I spoke to her. I remember saying that all was fine and that I was so glad to be talking to her: I had been trying to establish contact with a human civilization for so long! She laughed at this. She also laughed when I forgot how a phone worked and remarked, “Oh my God, the plastic is talking to me!”

Anyway, we eventually came down, and W went to watch Star Wars while J and I chilled up in W's room, watching Heroes on W's laptop. J smoked a bunch of weed and decided that he was omniscient and kept muttering about “Follow the goddam plus” and “Remove the time factor and it all goes to hell” and “Fractals!”. It was silly, but he was caught in loops of thought, so it got annoying after a bit. He also felt like God or something like that. During my voyage, I had decided that I smoke too much weed (I had smoked nearly every day the previous week to combat the stress – that's extreme for me), and that it was unhealthy. Plus, once I was all the way down, I was glad to be back to our common perception of reality! Reality is a beautiful place, and I now have no desire to change my consciousness again. At least not for a while. The idea of weed is repulsive.

I went to sleep happy and renewed, my planet reformed but modified, better. I left some of the bad or unnecessary pieces of myself drifting out in the universe, and changed others. I feel like a new person! I love being here, and every day of existing is beautiful.

I woke up on Sunday morning with a horrible migraine. I had no idea why, because beyond that, I felt amazing! As it was, though, I could barely move for a while. Eventually I got up and we went out to breakfast, and the walk to town was indescribably wonderful. I wasn't very hungry, but that was OK. What can you expect after eating an eighth of shrooms? I later realized that my migraine was stress-induced from the preceding week. I hadn't really been able to relax at all during that high-stress week, and having your identity shattered and spread across the universe, although fun, beautiful, and renewing, is not a relaxing experience. It's a bit stressful to tell the truth. So after that my brain just had a small breakdown. It's OK, though, it's Tuesday now and I'm feeling great! I walk around with a smile on my face, feeling like a new man. I'll be sure to remember to have low stress levels before my next mushroom journey (which will be in a while!). In the meantime, I have gained a high level of respect for mushrooms. They are a great and powerful tool and ally, and my next and all future uses of them will be initiated ritually, with the respect they are due.

...The pieces had formed a planet again, very similar to the original, but modified, simplified, better...

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 67517
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 4, 2010	Views: 11,718
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Mushrooms (39), Nitrous Oxide (40) : Relationships (44), Glowing Experiences (4), Small Group (2-9) (17)