I had just harvested my very first home-grown mushrooms, and decided to "test
them out" one Sunday night. I blended 9 large, fresh Psilocybe cubensis with orange
juice and a vitamin C pill, and chugged it down. The taste wasn't nearly as bad
as I had anticipated.
I noticed, immediately after downing the last of the
drink, that it was 9:00 and made the stupid decision to watch the X-Files while
waiting for the effects to hit. I sat on my comfy couch and flipped on the
TV.
After about 25 minutes, I began to notice that when I looked at my white
walls, they seemed to be very subtly changing colors from white to red to green
and back. Also, I had an increasingly "weird" feeling throughout my entire body.
It wasn't really unpleasant, but I wasn't used to it. It's very difficult
to explain. Kind of as if my body was ever so slightly expanding and growing
warmer. I felt a little short of breath.
By the time the show was over, I was
feeling really strange. I stood up and walked to my room. I felt "floaty", like
my head was high above my body. I turned on some music and lay down on my bed.
My lava lamp was on and I closed my eyes and watched the colors change and
pulsate through my eyelids.
I began to see some vaguely defined images: happy
mushrooms (like in Super Mario Bros.) and muppet babies(!), pulsing and shifting
to the beat of the music and the colors of my lava lamp. I smiled in the dark,
and couldn't stop smiling. I was beginning to enjoy the odd sensation in my body
and the visuals were becoming more and more defined.
I picked up a roll of
toilet paper which was sitting beside my bed and unrolled a few feet of it; I
crinkled and crumpled it in my face and ears. It sent electrical impulses down
my body, and I laughed out loud. The music and the lights and the toilet paper
were all sending these surging feelings of pleasure through my chest.
I felt
an urge to go outside, so reluctantly I put down the T.P. and left my room.
Standing outside in the dark, I felt a feeling of immense happiness...I looked
up at the sky and felt like an animal or early human, gazing with amazement at
the world around me. I was incredibly connected to everything in nature. Insects
which I normally would have swatted away flew around my face and I watched them
with wonder. I heard sounds which resembled chanting and singing of pure
happiness; I thought it was the music leaking from my room but I realized the CD
had ended a while ago.
I simply walked around outside for what must have been
at least an hour, spending ten or twenty minutes just to listen to the wind in
the trees or watch the stars twinkle. I came to a tree and tried to climb it,
but its branches were too high so I went inside and brought out a chair to give
myself a boost. I was still only barely able to reach the branches, but I
managed to grasp one and I pulled myself up. Climbing a little higher, I sat on
a limb, hugging the trunk and swinging my bare feet.
I felt so amazingly
connected to everything. It was as if the distinction between myself and
everything else in nature no longer existed. I was part of the tree and the
grass and the air and the sky. I realized that life is forever; that even when I
physically die I won't be dead; I'll forever be part of the world and its
abundance of life. That feeling did stay with me and since that trip I've
lost all fear of dying.
When I realized, though, that I'd probably lose the
feeling of connectedness when the trip ended, I was sad. But I decided to try my
hardest not to lose the sensation the next morning. That cheered me up
substantially. The feeling was so strong and so vivid I couldn't imagine ever
forgetting it.
I don't know how long I sat in the tree, but eventually I
decided to climb down and I carried the chair back inside. I sat in my room and,
for some reason, began to feel extremely sad and melancholy. At first I thought
it was because I wasn't outside anymore so I left my house again, but sitting
outside no longer gave me any sort of thrill. I returned to my room, the
depression becoming more and more intense. I began to feel that my life was
meaningless. The very feeling of immortality that had brought me so much joy
only an hour ago now began to make me panic. I felt as though there was no
escape from my drab existence; that I was doomed to an eternity of meaningless
"being". I tried to read a Calvin and Hobbes book, but I was unable to
pay attention to it. It was as if my entire brain was focusing on this
depression, and it would not be diverted. I tried in vain to change to
course of the trip back to positive, or at least neutral, but I only fell deeper
and deeper into the depression. In a panic, I logged onto the Internet and read
about magic mushroom trips; it was comforting when I read about the "manic
depressive roller coaster" which can accompany them, but it didn't help me feel
any less depressed. In my mind, I knew that when the trip wore off I would be
back to normal, but that didn't help either.
I decided all I could do was
wait it out, so I tried to read and watched the clock. About 5 hours after
ingestion I was feeling better, and by 3:30 in the morning I felt more-or-less
back to normal, albeit emotionally fragile and bruised.
I took a shower and slept, and the next morning I felt fine - pretty damn good, actually.
I still have a problem with depression coming down from my trips, but in general I find the
experience so much fun and so valuable that I'm willing to deal with it. Every time, the
depression is a little less intense, and the trip is a little better.
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