Taken by surprise

I%u2019ve always been drawn towards magic mushrooms and psychedelic experience. But I never got around to it when I was a teen, and it faded when I had kids and a lot of responsibilities the last couple of years. 

I went through some life changes since then, learned a lot about myself and got more time for myself. And since then, the interest started growing again. Partly this was just scratching stuff off my bucket list. I was only familiar with pot and alcohol and I%u2019m not really drawn to other types of drugs, except for hallucinogenics. But part of it was that I finally felt ready to start that experiment. If my friends would have used them, I would probably have joined in when I was younger. But they didn%u2019t, and I probably knew somehow that I wasn%u2019t really ready to use shrooms.

And now, at 40, I felt like I was and that this was a good time in my life to try them. I%u2019m prepared to deal with mid-life crisis jokes.

I read a bit about it, and then used a quiet afternoon for my first time. I bought 15grams of magic truffles of medium strength (Euphoria, I think they were called) and made tea out of them. The effect was mild but good. I felt relaxed, happy and physically good. Colours might have been a bit brighter, but that was it.

A few weeks later I tried 15 grams of Hollandia, truffles which are supposed to be stronger. These ones I ate. Just as with the Euphorias, I ingested them on an empty stomach. Surprisingly, the effect was close to nothing. I felt a bit drunk/stoned, but nothing else.

So I decided to try a last time, and bought 22grams of Hawaiian Highs, which had another kind of packaging. Explaining how my previous experiences were to the smartshop-owner, he advised to not use any sugar before. I did, and it%u2019s this trip this report is really about.

The first few times, I picked a relaxed day to eat the truffles. I looked for a good atmosphere and put on some nice music, but didn%u2019t really prepare much more. This time, I picked the day less carefully end ended up having a far more busy day then I thought I%u2019d have. I started eating the Hawaiians at 6pm, while finishing my last chores. I prepared myself even less this time. After a while, I started feeling light headed, so I put on some candles, put some music on and started to read a bit. I finished the truffles at about 6:45PM. By then, I started having visuals, nice bright halos and stars around led lights and other lights. I had to laugh a lot, felt increasingly disoriented and the visuals got stronger. That%u2019s when I realised this would be completely different from my previous experiences. The visuals started getting more and more intense. Dimensions seemed to shift, the flames of my wood stove were sometimes burning before the stove, everything started getting more and more warped. Now I also realised the advice to make sure you have a sitter shouldn%u2019t be thrown away as light-heartedly as I did, because I had always been alone when I ate the truffles.

At 7:30PM I suddenly got a call, which seemed to come from another world. I took me a while to travel to my phone, as now I my limbs seemed to be under my control for only a small amount of time. I was just discovering how everything turned out as I intended if I did it short and only for a small amount of time. If I wanted to stroke my hair but moved to slowly, I suddenly found myself scratching my arm. This makes finding a phone somewhat of a challenge. It had already stopped when I reached it, and this wasn%u2019t a phone call that would have been wise to answer. Just as I embarked on my journey back to my couch, the phone rang again. I had ordered fire wood for the next day, it was the delivery guy. I answered and managed to pull this of, but I felt myself losing contact with reality during the call. 

This triggered concern about what might happen. Clearly, this was something I hadn%u2019t anticipated, and the trip still was getting far more intense. Maybe the phone call brought the real world in, because now I was worried I might be %u2018caught%u2019 during my trip. I made everything safe (blew out the candles, locked the door so I had to go through a few steps to leave the house, got something to drink. I felt more and more detached from my body, it took quite some effort to take these steps. I felt like I lived in a time lapse movie. Memories, also some of long ago, came up in such a vivid way that I felt I was present in them, and then suddenly I was moving through my house again.

I think I was close to panicking and realised that if I kept obsessing about my safety or about possible embarrassing situations, this could turn into a frightening trip. So I surrendered to the idea that there was a possibility that I would wake up with my family finding me naked on the floor after paying an unexpected visit. Yes, I%u2019m 40 and my mother has a key of my house.

This triggered a next phase, in which I for the first time that evening really explored my experiences. I have a string of coloured balls which are lit, and these did all kind of neat stuff. I had all the typical hallucinations and thoroughly enjoyed it. Again had to laugh quite a bit. Struggling with clothes was fun too. 

But the trip was still increasing. I started thinking I could experience feelings as if I was another being. At some point I just knew I was feeling exactly as an octopus must feeling when it%u2019s swimming. 

After that I started falling apart, literally. Every part of my body felt like a separate entity. Then the same started to happen with my feeling of self. My ego, I guess. Time became meaningless, I was present in different phases in my life at the same time. I felt detached from the real world, and felt like I was falling apart in different pieces that would have been put together again. I experienced everything simultaneously: happiness, sadness, joy, fear,%u2026 

This made me scared again, I felt I was drawn into a place where I might not find my way out again. I decided to go lie in a room with less stimuli, and went to my bedroom. There, I battled against falling completely apart. I felt like I had to anchor myself in reality somewhat. Tried to bring back time using my alarm clock and my watch. (Funny aside: I still hadn%u2019t adjusted my watch to daylight saving time, so it was one hour ahead of my alarm clock. I did panick for a short while when it suddenly seemed that time had started moving backwards) 

I tried to convince myself I could trust my body, that it wouldn%u2019t cease to function, cause at some times a I had the feeling my lungs were only there if I very consciously breathed.

I don%u2019t know how long this battle lasted. Gradually, I felt more safe, shedding all worries one at the time. Somehow, I achored myself to my window, which was what I just had to return to to find my way back to reality. I didn%u2019t actually do this of course, but at the same time it felt almost physically like that. I started letting go, letting myself disappear. And then I suddenly returned to check my anchor, and then let go again.

Things get very hazy from then on. For the next few hours, I disappeared, and I really have no other way to describe it. I experienced the feelings of wholeness with everything, of the disappearance of time, of blending with everything else I read about in other reports. This is why I put this in the level 5 section. 

At about 1 am, I slowly returned to my self and my body. I was still having strong visuals. After a while, I went to watch some tv, end came down watching faces which seemed strangely but amusingly exaggerated. 

I write this lengthy report to share my experiences, and to capture them for myself. I%u2019m a skeptic, I%u2019m not spiritual and I understand this as my brain going haywire for a while. I also think people are embodied beings with a sense of self that resides in the brain.

I also think this is a reductionistic approach, and that at the same time, my sense of self is very real and a truth that isn%u2019t entirely captured by scientific explanations of the physical happenings in my brain. And in that way, this was a very profound experience, which I feel has led me to new and valuable insights, also about myself and myself in relation to others.  I%u2019ve also had problems with losing control over myself, but this time I willingly lost control, in the most far-reaching way I can imagine. Self-control is irrelevant if your self is gone.

And I also write this lengthy piece because for the first time in my life, I have to feeling I took an irresponsible risk. I wasn%u2019t prepared for this, it wasn%u2019t smart to do this while I was alone. I tend to see safety instructions as well-meant but optional suggestions. I was wrong to do that in this case.

To close of, I also hope to get some reactions. This is my private experiment, nobody I know knows about it. I can imagine telling someone, but I can%u2019t think of anybody that can relate. And I have a feeling I have to process this a bit more, also because I%u2019m thinking about a next trip, now that I%u2019m familiar with what might happen. I feel there%u2019s more to explore, in due time.

Anyway, thanks for sitting through my story, for those who reached this point.

David