This story is about my first time trying mushrooms, and the
positive/negative experiences that followed.
Part I: Starting Out
The evening started out in our dorm, around 6pm. It was my
first experience with mushrooms, and I was pretty excited about it. I was
tripping with a fairly interesting and experienced group of guys, 8 in all.
Most had shroomed at least once, some over 5 times. Overall, we were a diverse
mix of personalities, and I was anticipating a pretty crazy time. We had
planned to just relax and walk around throughout the trip. After eating about
3.5-3.8 grams each, followed by some orange juice, we departed from our room
and headed for the campus quad.
At this point, I’d like to make a brief note. I decided to
chase the mushrooms with a particularly large and delicious burrito, which
turned out to be the worst idea of the night. You’ll find out why a little
later.
Part II: Up on the Roof
So we headed across the quad. It was a really pleasant fall
evening, around 65 degrees. We crossed the campus giggling and laughing,
although we all knew the drugs hadn’t kicked in yet. We passed some friends,
who we laughed at for a bit, much to their chagrin.
At our school, the library has a spacious roof, with a
terrific view, that has become a well-known smoking spot for many students. We
had decided to just chill up there for a while and watch the sunset/city. At
this point, about 30 mins into the trip, I wasn’t feeling anything yet. After
sitting in the grass on the roof for a while, we began to laugh and talk, and
after about 10 mins, I started feeling a little dizzy and elongated. I started
looking at the faced of my friends, who were obviously tripping by now, and
their eyes and mouths seemed colorful, bulging and exaggerated. I turned back
towards the sky and city, which were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
Clouds and vapor trails from planes seemed to continue
infinitely in all directions. I felt as though the sunset was a part of me, and
I distinctly remember feeling as though we were all surrounded by a giant dome,
on which all these colors and forms were changing and moving. Looking at the
city felt so good and so right, almost as if “watching” was an activity in
itself, like reading or biking. Every light and building seemed to glow separately.
Looking around, I noticed that the concrete and grass top of the roof seemed to
stretch in all directions like a giant plain. My friends were all wandering
about in small groups pointing things out to each other. The seemed miles away,
or sometimes exteremly close.
At this point, I started feeling a little sick from the
Mexican. My stomach was churning, and when I tried to sit and relax, my
friend’s voices and other noises seemed to reverberate and echo uncontrollably
in my head. I quietly told one of my friends about my condition, and he just
stared at me. But I was feeling worse by the minute. Without thinking, I ran
down the steps and into the library.
I sprinted down hallways and through rooms, noticing how the
angularity of the walls seemed to cause a caving-in sensation wherever I ran. I
felt like people were glaring at me from all around. Finally I made it to the
basement bathroom. It was about an hour and 20 mins since I had taken the
shrooms, and I had the Fear. I leaned against the mirror, noticing my own
bulging and bloodshot eyes. Horror. This was the bad trip that I had heard
about, and I finally panicked and jammed my fingers down my throat. I ended up
booting all over the wall, completely missing the toilet! But afterwards, I felt
so purged and cleansed, that I washed my face and returned to my friends as
though nothing had happened. I decided not to tell them about my little
breakdown, or the pile of puke left in the bathroom.
Part III: The Walk and The House
Around this time, about 1.5 hours from the beginning, I
began to feel as though I needed to be somewhere else. My friend actually told
me the next day that I had turned to him and said “the winds of fate are
drawing us to the house” or something like that. We decided to split into
groups and walk to our frat house. It was starting to get dark at this time.
The walk back was my “peak of happiness” of the night. The
campus looked so scenic and mysterious. Lights shone through tree leaves, and I
kept thinking I was in some kind of fairy world. Everything was so pretty. We
walked and talked, for what seemed like hours, but was actually no more than 15
mins. When we finally got to the house, beers were there to great us.
I distinctly remember walking up the stairs inside the house—all
of us bumping into each other, talking loudly, changing directions, all this
played out against the eggshell white sheen of the walls—and thinking that this
moment seemed to me like the perfect album cover.
Anyway, we eventually made it into someone’s room, where we
all sat down and lounged, smoking hookah and drinking beers—typical frat stuff.
Enclosed in this perfectly square room, I felt like we were in a time capsule
miles underground. We began (crappily, but with great enthusiasm) discussing
philosophy, science and the past.
In terms of psychological effects at this stage, I had this
amazing feeling that I understood everything in the universe, and that this
“master plan” made complete sense. It seemed to me that if it was possible for
me to experience my surroundings in the way that I could at the time, what
would stop me from always being able to reach this new level of reality?
Time also became a nonexistent or at least unfixed notion,
which slowed and quickened at no logical or predictable interval. This part of
my trip was by far the most enlightening, nearly 2.5 hours after ingestion. It
seemed that mushrooms had loosened my ability to connect conventional meanings
to everyday objects and principles. I was discovering everything for the first
time, and everything made complete sense. The things I and my friends had been
saying about the nature of life seemed extremely important and unquestionably
true.
After about 30 more minutes, we all started coming down,
which was a strange experience that I can’t compare to anything else I’ve ever
felt. It seemed neither good nor bad, neither pleasurable nor uncomfortable. We
started drinking heavily, and I never had a change to be completely sober after
the trip. But the rest of the night proceeded in the usually drunken fashion.
The next day, I felt unusually happy and pleased with
everything, and I didn’t have any negative hangover effects at all.
Conclusion
Overall, shrooming was a pleasurable and enlightening
experience that allowed me to reach mental states that I’ve never before
achieved. It was also a fucking laugh riot at times, and very beautiful at
others. I’m looking forward to doing them again soon, but perhaps in a slightly
lesser dosage.
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