1st trip, Psilocybe Semilanceata (Lib Caps)

First of all I should set the scene. I had been up all night taking lines of coke and then smoking weed, and at around 8 in the morning a mate suggests we go picking (here in western Scotland you get huge patches of Psilocybe Semilanceata Lib Caps in the autumn).

So we head out and sure enough there are dozens, including the biggest my experienced-tripper mate had ever scene (3cm-wide caps!).

The weather is shit so we head back to my place to cook them up. Knowing that it's best to be outdoors I asked my mate to give me a small dose if we're staying in, but when he came through with the mug of tea I find out he's cooked the lot up. I don't know how many dried grams this would have equated to but I think there were around 180 shrooms in the pot- many quite large.

I didn't intend on having the lot but when 20 mins had passed and I felt nothing I finished the cup. 

I'm sat stoned and waiting, and an empty Coke bottle catches my eye, the red label looking much more red than usual. Staring at this intensely started off the first wave, with the label almost popping out at me. As I realise what's happening I start enjoying it, and very shortly after the intensity increased. I smile at the whole situation and my physical smile feels like it keeps going off my face and into the world. The world is smiling with me. I'm looking at my trousers and an amazing wavy flowing pattern forms all over them. My clothes are alive! The pattern gets more and more vivid and then suddenly floods off my trousers and onto the floor, quickly engulfing everything. At this point I'm loving it.

For obvious reasons we want to play some music and I'm trying to put a certain track on. Annoyingly though, within 45 mins of the onset I'm already tripping so hard that I can hardly read the screen. Everything I look at magnifies so much into my face that it's not readable. For quite a while I'm going through a cycle of trying to get this track on, failing miserably and then forgetting that I've tried and trying again! This was pretty frustrating.

Soon though we got distracted by other stuff and as the waves get stronger we're spending almost no time talking, just sitting there tripping completely isolated from one another. We started watching South Park (somehow) and within a very short time I think we're having a computerised adventure, with my mate as an A.I. character in a computer version of the South Park world (although it probably didn't resemble it at all!) I'm pretty sure at one point we wondered through a chat show.

Suddenly I really need to use the toilet so I get up feeling pretty okay and between waves, but halfway across the living room another wave hits me and my legs no longer obey me, taking me in wobbly circles until I give up trying to walk. Eventually this passes and I go downstairs. The second I see the bathroom it looks incredible. The white walls and ceramics looked so clean that it became a computerised model of a bathroom, like on 3d design software. Very cool.

By this point I've noticed the unpredictability of a trip, with some really basic things making me very uncomfortable or afraid. Fortunately this wasn't dominating. At about his point though the waves stopped existing. I was constantly tripping very hard and the trip was getting stronger. In microscopic moments of clarity where I remembered I was tripping I thought 'shit, how much further can this go'.

It got to the point where I could no longer operate physically and ended up just lying on my bed. My mate and I hadn't spoken to each other for a long time and I may as well have been totally alone- which is what I started feeling. I grab my duvet to hide myself, flinging it over my head, and the moment it enveloped me I was suddenly in a tent on a very high, peaceful snowy mountain- like in the Himalayas- and I'm peeking out of the tent at the view. This I guess was my last success at directing my trip, because after this it became a battle against 'the darkness'. I felt alone and had no music. Opening my eyes was too intense to handle so I was alone with my imagination, and no matter how hard I tried to think positive, the little seeds of negativity took hold and I started to fight the trip. Bad idea. 

For a couple of hours I journeyed through just about every insecurity I've ever experienced, with a strong outer body experience that had me in a great dark chasm shouting desperately up into nothing and thinking I had become a vegetable, that my family and friends were crowded around me and thinking my mind was gone when actually I could hear and understand everything. This was truly terrifying, and I experienced a complete and utter loss of control over body and mind, but eventually the waves came back and I had moments of clarity again. Relief!

By this point my housemate had woken up and when I looked up he asked how I was. I think I told him I just wanted it to stop... So anyway, I gradually became able to operate again and we sit around smoking. We're still tripping quite hard but it's really subtle and things are creeping up on us. My mate is still having a silent conversation with two people who aren't there. I picked up my grinder and started pulling apart the two sections, which are magnetically joined. After a moment the most incredible sensual trip began, where I gained the sense of magnetism all over my fingertips and it suddenly felt like I was levitating the grinder between my hands. I cannot put into words how real and amazing this felt and it lasted quite while. I said to my mate 'Do you see this? Do you see what is happening?' and in his trippy state he said 'Yeah man'. This almost put me over the edge and it took my sober housemate coming into the room to tell me I had not just gained a superpower from mushrooms :)

This was the last good sensation I can remember from the trip. I smoked a ridiculous amount, and ended up so stoned and wasted from the night before that I couldn't sit up on the chair and ended up on the floor. Eventually I began getting unpleasant throat sensations, and although I hear this is common, it became extremely bad. The sensation rose like a tide in my throat and when it reached my mouth it became painful, with my teeth becoming incredibly sensitive and every breath hurting them. After this I touched my teeth with my tongue and they felt like bloody toothless gums. This went on until I finally slept. I think this was probably a result of both the quantity of weed and the comedown off hard stimulants from the night before, coupled with the trip.

I guess it's obvious that this was an intense experience, but I thought that I was done and I could slowly process and overcome the things it brought up. Nothing could prepare me for the next time I smoked a joint though. This occoured around 5-7 days later at my mates' house around the corner. Joints are being passed about constantly and I partake as usual, but within a very short time I begin feeling really uncomfortable and suddenly realise I've started tripping hard. I'm in a room full of stoners and I'm completely off on another level. This scared the shit out of me, and I try to keep my cool and say to everyone that I'm off. They ask why and I say I'm feeling bad and I think I'm tripping. No-one really gets what this actually means. It's a 3-4 minute walk home but it felt like an hour- paranoid, shaking and really confused I finally get into the house and just collapse on my bed. The same bed I tripped balls in a week earlier. I don't know how long I was lying there for but my housemates get back to find my vibrating uncontrollably on my mattress. The whole bed is shaking and I scare them pretty well! After a couple of mins with someone to talk to I calm down and stop shaking,

This 'flashback', as I later discovered it was probably affected me psychologically much more than the trip itself. It made me feel that I had no control over my body or mind and it scared me that I could maybe just lose it one day without warning. I had experienced my first panic attack, and others would later have me blacking out in stressful situations. Fortunately I'm over this, but I can no longer smoke weed unless I've taken something stronger first like MDMA (and I used to smoke a lot). If I smoke sober then I get mild to strong flashbacks depending on the weed.

Hopefully this report can shed some light on the great aspects of mushrooms, whilst also revealing just how serious they can be if you are irresponsible in taking them. I shouldn't have done anywhere near as much for a first trip, especially in the circumstances, and it took me by surprise.

I don't regret the experience as I've come through it a stronger individual deep down. I've also tripped a few times since (weird that I can't smoke but can trip!), but never nearly as much. I really enjoy a low to medium dose at a party or outside.

Yesterday I tried what I think were Cubensis, and enjoyed them much more than the Lib Caps that I have taken before. It was a more visual trip, and gave me waves of euphoria and comfort that I would usually associate with MDMA. It was really really good, and I didn't feel like it was possible for the trip to go bad! Will definitely look for Cubensis spores as I'd much rather grow these than keep picking lib caps. They're just a bit too psychologically intense for me!

Thanks for reading about my experience, I hope you have great ones yourself. There are plenty to be had, just watch those dosages!