Amanita Ascending

Ever since the beginning of my interest in psychedelic/psychoactive substances, this site has been a sort of home to me before and after experiences. Throughout that time I’ve always thought about posting an account of one of my own endeavors, but the urge was never incredibly strong nor did I even know what words I would use to describe them in a way worthy of the actual events which is in my opinion an impossible task that any psychonaut would understand. But yesterday I had one of the most profound, life affirming experiences of my life, and I feel that now is the time for me to finally offer something to my psychedelic community.

I will try to be brief so as not to bore you but in the same respect this is a very personal part of me, and I hope you will give it the chance to touch you like it has me. A lot has happened since psychedelics first manifested themselves as a part of my life. The majority of my senior year of high school was spent in some combination of learning about, talking about, and of course using LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and my favorite at the time, DMT. Through all of the trips, good and bad, I formed a really invaluable friendship with someone who I will never forget. A person very near and dear to my heart, we grew up together, saw each other through thick and thin, and in many cases facilitated each other’s obsession with psychedelics like a pair of giddy schoolgirls. But that all ended with the close of high school and my entry into the Army, but as fate would have it that portion of my life seemed to end as soon as it started like most things in my life have the tendency to do. And so after living for about 9 months away from friends, family, and my past I was suddenly right back where it all began, for better or for worse. But so as not to ramble on I’ll just get right to the event at hand.

I was in a smoke shop with my best friend that I mentioned earlier when he noticed a package of amanita muscaria mushrooms (Grade A+++). Of course we were both interested at the possibility of legal psychoactive mushrooms, so I did a little homework on my own and came back about a week later to pick them up. After overthinking every aspect of the trip like I usually do, I decided to grind about 6 grams of the mushrooms into a powder and mix them with about a cup of applesauce along with some cinnamon for flavor and a teaspoon of ginger in hopes to alleviate any nausea that might come on like is common in most amanita experiences. So I eat the sauce at 9 pm, not too bad, kind of sandy texture to the shrooms but other than that not noticeable at all; and then like every trip, you wait. For the amanitas I was expecting around 2 hours until any effects started to show, and with a rather moderate dose I was admittedly a bit skeptical that anything would happen at all. Two hours pass, absolutely no change in any respect physical or mental. Three hours go by (12 am), still nothing, and at this point my friend and I just chalked it up as a bust. So I leave my room, make something to eat and light an incense so that I could at least still enjoy the evening and then an odd thought washed over me. For some reason I had the urge to smoke some weed. The reason that this is an odd thought for me is because I simply don’t smoke weed, everytime I’ve tried it it’s had no effect on me at all and I’m around it all the time so it’s not as if I couldn’t try again if I wanted to. For whatever reason, I felt the need to smoke some weed at this moment, probably to cover up the disappointment from the dud shrooms that I had such high hopes for.

I take a few hits from the pipe, nothing as usual but nevertheless I was enjoying the smoke so I continued. At this point sort of without me realizing it, I was actually starting to get a buzz of the weed, and this really comforting warming sensation started to envelope me everytime I would take a hit. After taking notice of this, I took another big hit just glad to be feeling something and happened to look up at my ceiling in a kind of futile attempt to force visuals remembering I had taken the mushrooms. At that exact moment, my entire world seemed to just freeze, as if being put on pause. My eyes were stuck, transfixed on my ceiling, my entire body went rigid, and there was absolutely no sound even though I had music playing through my laptop. Suddenly my head began to rotate, but the movements were not my own, and I could put up no resistance because to put it simply something else had taken control of my physical form. As my eyes followed my heads movements, I realized that I had no idea where I was, even though deep in the recesses of my mind I still knew that I was in my room. A split second after remembering that I must be still in my room, an incredible realization hit me. The mushrooms had started working.

At that moment I heard someone say “Oh my god,” and like crashing into a brick wall at 100 miles per hour, the trip began to peak, seconds after it had began. I felt, distance. I felt the distance growing as I left my body hurtling at infinite speed through a black void. I wasn’t aware of anything, not that I had taken the amanitas, not that my body was still on my bed in my room, not that I was a human being. At some point this ethereal incarnation of what I will call my spirit for the purposes of the experience came to an abrupt halt. And sitting before me was a blue silhouette of a woman sitting in the full lotus position, meditating. Radiating from her were these incredibly vibrant waves of energy in every color, and there was peace. Simply the most tranquil, shapeless peace. At this moment, I felt something contort. My body, infinite miles away, and I felt a smile come across it’s face, and tears began leave it’s eyes.

Suddenly I felt an overwhelming energy take hold of my spirit again, and like a tidal wave breaking it thrust me back into my body and waves of just incredibly powerful energy coursed through me as if I was being electrocuted. As it turned out this wasn’t just a mental sensation because as I regained my senses I felt and saw myself sort of, vibrating. Not like other trips, where I feel inclined to move with the music, or the occasional muscle spasm. This was every fiber in my body alive with this energy and I convulsed, overwhelmed by it’s power. I’m not the most experienced tripper but I’m also no stranger to them either, and feeling myself whole again, I attempted to get on top of this experience and ride it out. Managing to grab my phone, I frantically called my friend mentioned earlier, and another close friend. After babbling on and on for what I think must’ve been a few hours I was feeling pretty normal compared to the episode before, and so I let them get some much needed sleep. At that point I laid back, closed my eyes, and saw some of the most beautiful, indescribable visions of anything I’ve ever experienced. In hindsight, this was one major difference of the amanita’s effects from typical psychedelics. The visuals were not what you would expect with acid or psilocybin, patterns and colors of the like. These visuals were fully formed, perfect images, similar to looking at an interactive slideshow or some sort of projection.

Anyways, I don’t remember falling asleep during that period, but I do remember waking up the next morning. It was as if the moment you closed your eyes you were already asleep and there was no transition between the two. When I woke up, I felt very well rested, and completely normal, as if nothing unusual had happened. I have a few comments to make on certain things in retrospect of the trip. Firstly, I’m still not sure what set off the amanitas when they finally kicked in. One theory I have is that the trip had already started at that 2 hour point and for some reason I wasn’t feeling it as if I wasn’t tuned into the right frequency or something and the weed acted to dial in that frequency so when I finally was on the right “station” I came in right as it began to peak and that would explain why there was virtually no come up. Perhaps the weed didn’t have anything to do with it and the muscimol in the mushrooms just came on very delayed. Another thing, the vibrating energy that I felt upon being put back into my physical self could very well have been a seizure as a result of the muscimol. It lasted about 40 minutes of just relentless convulsing and then thankfully subsided and allowed me to relax after it ran it’s course. Lastly, I’m not a very spiritual person most of the time, but the out of body vision that this experience provided me with carried something, an aura or a presence of undeniable power and love. It is the most profound and affirming thing I have ever been through, and though I don’t have all the answers as to what it meant, I know that I don’t need to because it simply isn’t my burden to carry. More than anything I would like to say how thankful I am for the entire experience, and how grateful I am for the beauty and love that I have in my life everyday. I hope that if you took the time to read this far, you will find that beauty in your own lives, thanks.