DOSE:	repeated	oral	Alcohol
	repeated	vaporized	Cannabis
		oral	Mushrooms	(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

110 lb

I’d been on the fence all day: to eat the mushrooms or not to eat the mushrooms? That was the question. It was my first day entirely away from work in a long (I’m talking six months) time, and I’d already had a gram of weed and a few ciders during the day. I’d been hoping to have a psychedelic experience for the past week or so. I’d been stuck in a negative thought pattern and hoped that getting into an atypical frame of mind might help me to sort through some of the issues. But I also knew that these experiences come at their own costs, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to deal with those.

A couple more hits off the vape had me feeling that, yes, this was a good time for an experience.

I’d cultivated my own mushrooms and don’t have a scale. I’d previously had an experience with five small “B+” mushrooms that had worked out well, so I pulled out three larger ones and went for the saltines and peanut butter. I managed to eat two of them before deciding that I’d hold off on the third until I knew how what I’d already downed would affect me.

Then the wait. I ate them around 6:00 PM and then figured I should probably make my sister’s birthday cake before I was rendered unable to perform such activities. I took about forty-five minutes to prep the cake and wash up the dishes, and then I retreated into my bedroom to build up the anticipation. I was beginning to feel altered. I wasn’t yet seeing anything differently, but I had the sensation that I soon would be. I had a bit of the pre-trip dread and was feeling some nausea. Yes, most definitely feeling altered.

Forty-five minutes passed, the nausea was getting to me, and I was becoming impatient. Still feeling nervous anticipation, I packed the vaporizer with a fresh sativa and drew in slowly. It’s amazing how quickly mushrooms come on once marijuana is introduced into the mix. The light immediately took on a different quality as objects in the room got brighter. Things weren’t moving around too much yet, but as I looked at my dog, I saw her coat shimmer and shine in a way that was intensely beautiful (imagine a husky with German shepherd colors and you’ve got my dog’s lovely appearance). I found her breathing intensely interesting, the way it made her muscles ripple and swell under her fur. I went over to pet her and felt the same intense connection, the same burning love that I’d felt for her the first time I’d spent time with her whilst under the influence of psilocybe. The feelings were almost overwhelming. Things were going well and I was beginning to feel the euphoria creeping up.

My sister got home and a family meeting was set up via the web cam, with my mom, brother, sister-in-law and two-year-old nephew on one side and my sister and I on the other. I felt so happy to see my family and laughed at all of the silly things my young nephew was up to. I’m normally intensely introverted and a bit frigid, speaking in one-word answers (when necessary) and avoiding most interactions. My sister had to take a phone call and she left me with the family (and the microphone headset, which I found nearly impossibly to operate under the conditions).

Talking to my family felt wonderful and was far easier than it typically is for me. I smiled and laughed a lot, not feeling self-conscious about the “dour” personality I’m often intentionally upholding for myself. When my nephew blew a kiss, I blew him one back, which my mom remarked was something I wouldn’t normally do (and thusly is something that young Ely should treasure).

I couldn’t help it; I just felt really good.

But I was also feeling a bit messed up. My sister had an autumn tree-lined lane as her computer wallpaper, and the way the colors were shining out at me was intensely beautiful, but also a bit overwhelming under the circumstances. Things everywhere were beginning to look very strange, very bright, but also soft-focused. The visuals weren’t warped or moving, but things would go in and out of focus as colors vividly popped out, more pastel than I usually see them.

Two hours after consuming, I was feeling drugged. I was once given morphine in a hospital setting, and was reminded of the sensations that I’d felt at that time. The best I could do was sit unmoving in the armchair, quietly observing the world around me and finding myself unable to do much more than that.

The Vancouver Winter Olympics came on (I’m an Olympics junkie and will watch any event happily [even curling]), and I was amazed by Bob Costas’ glowing, pink skin. He looked more youthful than he has in years, shining with a radiant light emanating from somewhere within him. I wanted to laugh at just how beautiful he looked (not in an attractive way, but in the way that everything I looked at seemed was radiant), but seeing as I was in a room with family who doesn’t know about this part of my life, I had to repress myself.

But I was finding it so difficult to hold back anything. Aside from feeling very drugged and out of it, I was also feeling intensely euphoric. My sister and her boyfriend were making jokes with each other and I couldn’t help but laugh at the random silly things they were saying (whereas under normal conditions I would’ve remained stone-faced at the ridiculous, immature jokes). I tried to join in, but was finding myself even more tongue-tied than I normally am and was struggling a bit to speak a thought in a way that would make sense.

The sports themselves looked amazing. The female figure skaters shone and left trails behind them as they performed their triple toe loops and spins. The colors would fluctuate, sometimes appearing almost too bright to look at and sometimes leaching entirely for a few moments, the TV becoming momentarily black and white.

I’m an early riser and am typically in bed by 9:30 PM, but I couldn’t pull myself from the TV. Even the Nordic Biathlon was too entertaining to tear myself away from, the jerseys glowing against the snow, things still going in and out of soft focus. Even the commercials (the exorbitant number of them played during the Games had had me complaining for the past two weeks) were entertaining to me, so transparent and flagrantly manipulative.

I could’ve stayed in front of the TV all night, but I thought that would’ve looked strangely suspicious, so I retreated to my room. I’d heard that mushrooms would leave you restless, but since my previous trip had been during the day, I had no idea just how impossible sleep would prove to be. I knew I didn’t feel the least bit tired, though, and decided to vape a good indica, both to strengthen the visuals and to try to make myself tired (and, hopefully, sleepy).

I turned off the lights and lay down, and, figuring I’d feel okay with a nature documentary to lull me to sleep. Taking the importance of plants in my current condition into consideration, I put on Attenboroughs’s “Private Life of Plants” and watched the first and part of the second episode before I felt I needed to change to something more mind-numbing.

At this point, it was getting late and I just wanted to fall asleep. Part of the documentary had taken place in a woodland, and I’d found the scenery very beautiful and relaxing under the circumstances, so I went onto Youtube to see if I could find a long video of a quiet woodland scene. I didn’t find that, but I did find “meditation” videos of waves breaking against rocks and put one on.

Again picking up the vape whip, I inhaled and watched as the video immediately become pastel and painterly, transforming into a moving oil painting. I’ve writ it before and I’ll write it again: paint is my favorite trip tool. Take a psychedelic in a place with interesting paint and thank me later.

My thought became therefore that looking at an oil paining would be a great experience. The first thing that came to mind was Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, so I searched for it and set it as my desktop wallpaper, minimized all windows, and was absolutely entranced by the way the colors changed, the way the starry sky moved. The night sky seemed to be assaulting the poor sleepy town, fighting its own celestial battle, unmindful of the sleeping humans below. I put on my old buddy “Person Pitch” by Panda Bear and watched the spinning sky.

I had the intense desire to see the paint move, though. I’m not an art expert or anything and wouldn’t normally be looking at Van Gogh paintings, but I wanted to see it in person right then and there, to lose myself in its texture and color. I decided that, if I ever get to the Museum of Modern Art, I will take mushrooms beforehand and lose myself in the actual painting.

It’s funny, how my opinions have changed as a result of experience. I previously would’ve considered anyone looking at art while under the influence to be somewhat ridiculous and a bit pretentious. But I get it now.

I’m now of the opinion that taking psychedelics should be an integral part of the human experience. I feel very strongly that everyone should feel the intense euphoria that his/her bodies is capable of providing, to see the intensely beautiful and unique visuals that his mind can convince him he’s seeing. More importantly (in my mind), these psychoactives open up a different way of thinking (hence the name). I can’t speak for others, but I know that I often get stuck in my typical thought patterns, going over the same ideas over and over and never coming out with any new way of looking at things. But these mind-altering substances that us humans have at our fingertips can bring in a new mindset, one that can perhaps bring new solutions to old problems and resolutions to the situations we often create for ourselves through our normal musings.

The problem is, sometimes it’s a bit difficult to remember just what those are. I try to write when I’m altered, but it was late and I wasn’t in the mood for it. In fact, I wasn’t in the mood for much beyond sleep, but that wasn’t coming. I still felt slightly nauseated and fully awake. My legs were aching and I was unconsciously flexing, contorting, and stretching them, unable to become comfortable. Beyond that, I also had an infected bug bite on my hip which would burn intensely whenever touched. So I couldn’t lie on my sides (which is how I normally sleep) and found lying on either my back or front intensely uncomfortable after a few moments.

The marijuana gave me terrible cotton mouth (only exacerbated by the fact I hadn’t been drinking much water), and I’d finished up the tea I had. Otherwise, the only other liquids in my room involved alcohol to some extent or another. I didn’t want to walk out to the kitchen for water, so I cracked open a warm apple cider and drank down half of it in one go. I was hit hard by it and sat back, feeling very fucked up and sick for five minutes or so before I adjusted. I was wishing I’d never taken all of these things so late in the day.

I couldn’t settle and flipped between waves, painting, video, music. I put on music from “Koyaanisqatsi” and the amount of anxiety it gave me made me admit that perhaps Phillip Glass wasn’t the best choice for a mushroom trip. I ended up in this twisting thought pattern, worrying about the bite on my hip and wondering just when the little baby spiders were going to come crawling out.

At this point, nothing was working. Having the blanket pulled up too far would make me uncomfortable, but so would having my head sticking out. My feet got too hot and I had to take off my slippers. The pain in my hip only grew the more I thought about it, and I had to slowly tell myself that the pain hadn’t spread too far, that I wasn’t going to die from the infection in the night. Certain music would make me feel terrible anxiety, and I couldn’t settle on anything to listen to. I reminded myself again and again that I was at home, in the most comfortable environment I know, that I had taken mushrooms too late in the day and that was what was making me so uncomfortable. I hit the vape time after time, eventually loading it with kief, hoping that something would just knock me out.

All else having failed, I figured I’d try masturbating. Sometimes a good orgasm will put me to sleep when nothing else will. I don’t have much of a sex drive and am not sexually active (outside of the one or two times a month I get the urge to take care of business myself), but I know that certain substances (thank you, cannabis!) intensify sensations, so I figured I’d find out what mushrooms would do.

For one thing, I immediately found the entire process more interesting that I usually do. For once, my finger was finding the experience as fun as my genitals were finding it stimulating. It was one of those moments of personal exploration that feminists talk about from time to time (which typically elicits some rolled eyeballs from me). Slight movements produced their own unique sensations, and I paid close attention to what was working and why.

The orgasms were appropriately intense and easy to come to, but I wasn’t left exhausted as I’d wanted to be. I stretched my legs and closed my eyes and watched the lights behind the eyelids as they crept along in a more “mushroomy” way than they normally do.

I finally drifted in and out of light sleep, waking up in the middle of the night several times and finding the light brighter than I usually do (wondering if it was morning when it was still very late).

I eventually fell into a light doze and woke up around 6:15 AM. And I felt terrible. I was exhausted and felt irritated by the bite. It felt like I had a terrible alcohol hangover. I went for the vape again, still hoping that I could find something that would allow me to get some sleep. I never did.

The rest of the day, the hungover feeling stayed with me. The bite pain and exhaustion was making me nauseous, and I went about my day very squinty-eyed and headachy. My previous mushroom experience hadn’t left me feeling like this, so I had to wonder what combination of substances and personal health had me feeling so terrible.

I didn’t feel like eating anything all day, but forced myself to have a few things just to keep my energy up. I worked the next afternoon and felt terrible, finding the physical nature of the job impossible to deal with.

Oh, and my infection only got worse until I finally went to an urgent care clinic where a doctor squeezed the pus and blood out for the most excruciating twenty seconds of my life while I screamed at him to stop and cried my little eyes out. I imagine that most of my hungover feelings following the experience were due to the infection and lack of sleep rather than the mushrooms themselves. Still, I would advise not to eat mushrooms when one is feeling sick or have any physical concerns, as one might fixate on the problem (beyond being an additional ordeal to put your body through when it’s already on the defense).

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 84133
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 27
Published: Apr 30, 2022	Views: 2,191
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Mushrooms (39), Alcohol (61), Cannabis (1) : Sex Discussion (14), Hangover / Days After (46), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Combinations (3), Alone (16)