DOSE:

1.75 g

oral

Mushrooms - P. cubensis

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

130 lb

Part 1.
For as long as I can remember, I have always searched for something more than this physical world. For example, I wanted to see a ghost, an alien, magic, God, etc. I was raised as a Catholic but as I became older, I began to doubt the existence of God or the values of the Catholic religion. I began to depressingly believe that once I die, I will just be in eternal blackness and unconsciousness, because from my experiences along with what I've learned about science, seemed like the only logical and possible result. That’s what Stephen Hawking believes, and I know he’s a smart guy. I found myself living my life day to day just taking existence as it came.

That all changed in one night; the night I decided it would be a good idea to experiment with hallucinogens. That one night, I had such a radical shift in perspective, that it changed everything I had believed up until that point about not only reality and existence itself, but it changed my mind about what I previously thought the after life entailed. It is my pleasure to finally be able to put the experience in words.

The month was August, year 2009. The night began as any other summer night. It was about 9:30pm, I was hanging out with my current female interest at the time and we were partaking in the timeless teenage ritual of driving around, blowing clouds of thick, white, lacy smoke. I took her to a park and we had a great time walking around in the dark wooded park and laughing in our young lust. I had received a text from one of my best friends; we’ll call him Dee for privacy reasons. Dee had shown up earlier that day when I had punched out of my job as a cashier at Stop and Shop. We played Frisbee in the parking lot for a little while until he brought me to his car and showed me a bag of brown earthy-like chunks. I immediately thought they were what are commonly referred to as shrooms. I hadn’t taken them before but I had heard stories from a few acquaintances that had, and one of them described it as “becoming superman” which I thought sounded appealing enough. Dee didn’t ask me to take them right then and there, he was just showing them to me. However, the text I received from him while I was storming the castle of Girldom, had me overjoyed. He asked me to co me to his house around eleven to try the shrooms with him. I explained this to my female companion and she had understood I had to go. I dropped her off at her car at about 10:30pm. My night was off to a great start and I was excited for the new experience I was about to partake in however, I had no idea that this night would be the most influential night of my entire existence.

I got to Dee’s house at about 11:00pm. His brothers were away that night and it was just him, his parents, and I. We did some quick and sloppy research on shrooms and decided we were going to go through with it. The internet made them sound like nothing serious. It described the experience as “euphoric, creative, and philosophical.” It mentioned the possibility of “life-changing spiritual experience.” I was skeptical of that since I had been searching for a legitimate form of spirituality my entire life. We had heard that shrooms grown on cow manure which grossed us out so we went out to buy delicious food to drown out the bad taste. In the future I would learn that mushrooms only grow on manure in the wild and any mushrooms purchased for ingesting was most likely grown on a rice cake in extremely sterile conditions. Dee and I stopped at Dunkin Donuts where I got a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant, which has always been a staple in my diet. He got pretzels which I thought was a terrible idea since the taste of pretzels can hardly overpower anything. Finally, we picked up a large amount of orange juice, because we had read that it makes the mushroom experience better in some way. We weren’t sure how exactly, but it is rumored to heighten the visual aspect of the hallucinations.

We arrived back at his house with our breakfast sandwiches, pretzels, and orange juice in hand and went to make sure his parents were asleep. Once it was confirmed, we went into what Dee’s family calls the New Room, since it was recently added as an addition, and prepared our mushroom infused meals.

At this point in my life I was an avid marijuana smoker. I smoked the best stuff available just about every day. I never had much experience with a psychedelic substance besides a one time experiment with the legal herb salvia. I thought that would be enough mental preparation to handle almost any hallucinogen, since I had read that salvia is the “most potent psychedelic.” I would later beg to differ. At the time, I thought a hallucination was seeing something that is not there. I later would learn that a hallucination is actually any type of perception without the use of our five senses. I anticipated seeing gentle colors, laughing a lot, and not much else. It was just something I wanted to do because I thought it might be fun and allow me to brag to my friends how much fun it was. With an excited mindset, we ate our food and mushrooms. We had each only eaten a “half dose” of mushrooms, so I thought that I would have half of the average experience. What I didn’t know was that there is no way of measuring the amount of active chemical responsible for the effects from one dose to another so one dose may be up to ten times as potent as the next. We had definitely obtained the potent stuff. With our mushroom meals finished, we sat on the large leather brown couches in his New Room and we waited.

Part 2.
After about an hour of waiting and feeling nothing, we started to become disappointed and doubt that anything would happen. However, about an hour later, sometime between 12:30am to 1:00am, I noticed I had lost interest in what was on the television and had been admiring the shape and architecture in the moldings on Dee’s wall. Dee’s family is a seemingly wealthy family and it was shown vividly in the beauty of this molding. The molding was pure white on a light brown painted wall and zigzagged in a stair like pattern across the entire length of the room. The room was dark and unilluminated and the shadows that the television light was creating on the wall from the molding danced in a pattern that was familiar, yet as I was seeing it now it looked especially beautiful, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“Ben!” Dee had yelled from across the couch.
“What man?” I said smiling, knowing full well he was calling my name because of the odd amount of time I was looking at his wall.
“What are you doing?” said Dee.
“Just staring at your wall man, your molding looks really nice, I don’t know why. I think the shrooms are working.”

We both agreed that we were starting to feel a bit odd so we decided to test it out. Dee turned on the recess light on his high ceiling fans to a dim setting. We returned to the couch when I began to concentrate on my hand. I began to see another set of my fingers above my current set of fingers and stared at them in amazement. They weren’t connected to my actual fingers but they were very blurry and floating there just inches above. As soon as I could think to tell Dee, I see from my peripheral vision, him staring at his hand in amazement on the other side of his couch and all of a sudden his thumb appeared to be inches from my face and in line with the rest of my fingers even though he was at least six feet away. I pulled my hand down and we laughed hysterically in excitement and awe.

My head began to become flooded with thoughts at speeds I would have never thought possible. If I were to think of a word, such as word for example, I would not only think of the word word and what it means but I would instantly think of every possible use, meaning, synonyms, rhyme, and experience I ever had with the word word. I felt like I could articulate anything clearer than any other time in my life. It was as if my brain was somehow able to access information and memories as speeds I never thought possible and I could articulate anything at lightening speeds. Dee must have felt the same way because at this point we were talking over each other at about a thousand words per second but it was fine, we didn’t need to take turns talking. We were able to understand and respond to everything each other was saying more clearly than ever.

At this point we knew we were in for something amazing. We began throwing couch pillows at each other and catching them, one in each hand, like it was happening automatically. It was as if my reflexes were improved drastically and seemed to be working on their own. Dee and I began to run around to different parts of the room examining and concentrating on things. When I would concentrate on something visually, every outline in my entire visual field began to become wavy and almost look as if it was melting. I also began to notice intricacies and patterns I had never seen before in things from the way his room and the things in it were built, all the way to different designs in the wood grain of his pool table. I ran over to a mirror on the wall and looked at my face. I had a brief thought that I looked more animalistic for some reason, almost mousy. I stared at my reflection until the shadowing and even expression and outlines of my face began to change and distort, this gave me anxiety so I ran over to the couch and sat behind it with my back to it. Dee came and sat next to me and began talking about how this is the most fun thing he’s ever done. As soon as I could agree with him I turned my head to look above my shoulder and the couch looked as if it was the size of a skyscraper. Either that or I was extremely tiny. I stood up and Dee and I both dove on opposite ends of the now normal sized couch. It was almost as if me and Dee were having all of the same exact hallucinations and experiences at the same time. It couldn’t believe this was really happening.

While on the couch Dee and I continued to talk extremely fast elaborating on a multitude of things. All of a sudden there was a tearing open of our hearts and we realized that everything is the way it should be, the bad and the good. I talked about how I don’t have the relationship I would want to have with my father and that I would want to have an experience like this with him so we could really understand each other better. At this moment I valued family more than I ever have. It was as if all the priorities I have were seen in the perfect order for me to be happy. Dee was talking about how he was able to understand his psyche and mind in a way he never thought was possible. He was frantically exclaiming how he was going to tell me how he thinks. Not like an opinion but in a structural way in which is mind puts thoughts together. He looked me in the eye and I immediately stopped him because I already knew what he was going to say. I t was as if the moment he looked me in the eye I knew exactly what thought was in his head. To this day I do not know if that was because I was experiencing the exact same thought of somehow he thought was put in my mind in an unexplainable way. I understand how hard it is to believe but as the conversation continued we both were convinced we could somehow perform some kind of mental telepathy.

At this point everything in my visual field was breathing and objects became much more animated. Colors began to pop and change faintly and I had some strange appreciation with the design, architecture and aesthetics of everything. The vibrations and mood was now at its emotional peak. It was as if all our emotions, happy, sadness, love, anxiety, laughter, and tranquility, were pushed to new unexplored heights. It was at this point I had one of the most intensely deep philosophical moments of my entire life. Somehow, this ancient and powerful knowledge was put into my mind that we are all one. Not all one in the sense that we all come from the same matter, but all one in the sense that we are all one consciousness, the consciousness of the universe, the exact way that what ever direction this existence is headed in wants us to be. This may be something one can think they understand, but it is as if there is a filter on everybody that is keeping the true beauty, mystery, and wonder of this existence from being able to be fully realized. At this moment I thought I had discovered the meaning of life and it hit me hard emotionally. Tears were streaming from my eyes as I was hysterically telling this to Dee and he completely understood and reacted similarly. It was at this point that I began to think that none of this is actually possible, there was no way I could discover the meaning of life, and I must be dreaming.

Part 3.
Losing touch with reality is something I would have never even thought was possible. I was in an existence where I completely thought I was dreaming, even though I was fully awake. I kept having to go to the bathroom to urinate because of all the orange juice we were drinking and it was starting to become annoying. I would take a sip and I could feel the juice pass from my mouth, to my throat, to my stomach, and into my bladder giving me the have to pee sensation like clock work. I focused hard on the sensation and discovered to my amazement that I could move the unpleasant feeling in my full bladder around to different parts of my body. I moved it to my arms, to my back, and then I made it disappear entirely. I no longer had to pee. I thought that everything I was happening was too incredible and I thought if I wasn’t dreaming, there’s no way I would be able to get out of this trip with all the knowledge I have gained from it. As a reminder, I changed Dee’s name in my phone to I don’t have to pee. I was starting to lose touch with reality more and more and more. I started to black out on and off and my memory from here on is incomplete and more a slide show of a few short scenes.

Part 3: Things Fall Apart/Hospitalization
I remember we were feeling tired and worn out so Dee wanted to go to bed. We were still tripping and were still in awe and disbelief. All of a sudden Dee yells at me, by now I am completely disconnected from reality and am in a blackout haze of confusion. He yelled that I pissed on his couch. It must have had something to do with me blocking my body’s ability to feel bladder discomfort.
“Just ignore it and it will go away.” I said in full belief that my words were true.

Dee began to panic. He was freaking out because he thought his couch was so expensive and he would have to explain what happened to his parents. Basically being in the hallucinogenic state he was in, he thought his life was going to end because of me peeing of his couch. The last thing I clearly remember was being thrown off of his couch. The next flash of a scene in my memory is me looking in the mirror shirtless and bleeding from my face with my chest covered in blood. I didn’t know what was going on but I ironically thought my bleeding reflection looked like Jesus. The next flash I am outside and the sun is rising. I would later learn that Dee had punched me in the face because I was begging him to do it as he was freaking out about the couch stain. As the sun was rising I was sitting staring at the hedges in Dee backyard rapping one of my favorite Lil’ Wayne songs at the time, shirtless and bleeding. I looked at the hedges in his yard and they spelled out the worlds Ron Regan. This was because Ron Regan was a name sung in the song I was rapping. After a failed attempt to drive me to get me in the car to the hospital Dee told me to stay outside so I don’t get blood anywhere and he could clean up the urine. I did not understand him and tried to walk through the door into his house but he got in my way and stopped me. All I could think was that I wanted to be inside so in an attempt to distract Dee, I threw my cell phone across his yard. I figured I wouldn’t need it since I was currently dreaming. My distraction worked and he retrieved my phone and I went inside. Once he came in after me I remember getting an extremely odd feeling and I looked at the door to the room knowing something was about to happen to it. I stared at the door and like clockwork; his mom came through the door and looked at us and the scene that unfolded with a shocked expression.

The second she entered the room Dee told her everything very quickly. She got her husband, who was a firefighter, and he called one of his buddies from the station to come over with an ambulance. I was lying on the couch and his dad asked me what I took. In my still blacking out stupor I told him vicodin, I have no idea why. The ambulance arrived and a few firefighters came in the room and I didn’t know what was going on at all. All I knew was that there were these big men in uniform trying to control where I walked. It scared me so I put my fists up and they threatened to call the police which must have had an effect on me because I did exactly what they said. They put me in the ambulance and all I could think was how this is the craziest dream and wondered when I’d awake. The ambulance made its way to the hospital and all the while I felt like a was on a cloud, slithering slowing by the still distorting houses and telephone poles. We got to the hospital and the doctor entered. He looked at me with a look of annoyance since it was now about 5am.

“What did you take? Wait a second I don’t give a shit.” Said the doctor, reinforcing my belief that I was dreaming. I laughed to myself and thought it was funny because I know doctors don’t say that to patients. I remember taking a urine test and as I was lying in the hospital bed I was staring at the reflections in the television in the room and noticed it wasn’t distorting as much as it was earlier. I must have been laying there for a long time because as I was in the bed, things became less dream-like. All of a sudden a terrifying thought popped into my head. Could all of this be real? That is not possible. As the effects began to lessen I solemnly laid there, hoping that I was wrong and it was a dream after all. Finally, I see both my parents walk into the hospital room.

It was at that very moment, that I knew it was real life. They came in with shocked facial expressions since by now my face was swollen and ugly. They were frantically trying to talk to me but I just laid there and stared at them in disbelief. I have been in shock before and I know exactly what it is like, and at that moment, I was most definitely in shock. I didn’t speak to anyone for hours. Dee eventually came in the room crying because he was in disbelief too and felt bad for what had happened. I finally started talking to my mom on the drive home. I didn’t tell her anything that happened. I just said how it was a terrible decision and I’m sorry. I was supposed to leave for college in a week but this event made my parents want me to wait a semester to leave for school, an idea that I fought ruthlessly and won.

I never told them about the mystical events that took place that night, fearing that they would think I was crazy and might do it again. My face hurt and I found out that my nose was slightly broken and I had a mild concussion. Dee was a large muscular person so I wasn’t surprised about my injuries. I just wished I could have remembered him hitting me. When I got home I went to my room and just sat on my bed, still in disbelief. I began to cry because I was scared and didn’t know how what happened to me was even possible. There are so many questions I have about that night that will never be answered. How were we able to understand each other when we were speaking over each other at the speeds we were? How were we able to know exactly what each other were thinking with out putting those thoughts into words? How did I know his mom was going to walk through the door just seconds before she did? Why did those thoughts of everyone being one come to me? I have read that the same thoughts happen to others under the influence of the substance. Could there be a message encrypted in the chemicals somehow?

Following my experience with mushrooms I became fascinated by them and did hours and hours of research. I didn’t know how I could have underestimated what would happen to me so greatly. It reinforced my belief that the brain can do things under the influence of psilocybin and psilocin that it could not do without them.

So there it was, I had found it; something magical, mystical, and terrifying. I am convinced that shrooms and other types of hallucinogens can make the impossible possible. In that one night, I had my entire perception flipped upside down. I now know that there is so much more to this existence than meets the eye. I appreciate beautiful things as well as the things I love so much more than I did before. The experience gave me a positive outlook on all aspects of life. It made me believe that there is no way that death is eternal blackness. This life is too magical and beautiful for that to be the truth. We are only experiencing the tip of the iceberg of existence and walk around with filters not allowing people to see the magic that is right in front of them. Ever since then I have been fascinated by existence itself. How is any of this possible? My life was given new meaning.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 97820
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Apr 3, 2018	Views: 6,112
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Mushrooms - P. cubensis (66) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Mystical Experiences (9), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), First Times (2), General (1)