Deck o' Cards (long)

Prenote: Apologies for the length, but I wanted to fit everything in.

The situation began Friday night with 4 friends of mine, R, W, N, and the token female, S (the rest of us are guys). All of us have done mush before, and smoke weed and the like. Although I've had about the same amount of experience as everyone else with psychedelics, I've done a lot more reading about them then anyone else with sites like Erowid and the Shroomery.

The Setup: We picked up 6 2gram chocolates from our friendly neighbourhood spiderman, and at about 10:20 (T-0) we dosed. Everyone had between 2 and 2.5g because we had the extra 2 grams kicking around. The usual waiting happened for a bit, and another friend, C, stopped by, and since he was headed out for a bit, he offered to pick us up weed if we wanted it. C took some cash for us and headed out for weed. He wasn't doing mush, but was planning on smoking with us later, as well as getting drunk later.

Over the next hour or so we all slowly came up (at least it seemed slowly... usually I'm feeling definite effects within 30 minutes, but this time it took about 40-60 before I really started feeling high. Also, a side note: I usually have pretty intense gut rot which gives the trip an uncomfortable undertone, but this time on the recommendation of a friend, I had eaten some ginger about an hour before dosing, and this utterly eliminated any nausea I would've felt. Definite, definite plus.

We were sitting in front of R's computer listening to the usual trip electronica that I had been downloading (Infected Mushroom, Shpongle, Deepsky, etc etc), and I was feeling a definite body buzz and heavy feeling. I always get an interesting duality when I'm coming up, because on the one hand I have a ton of energy and I want to do stuff, but at the same time, I don't feel capable of lifting my hands up. I had been sitting at the computer for about a half hour, and about now I finally stood up. I hadn't been feeling any visual effects (which I think was partly due to the lights being on), but when I stood up I realized that I was pretty high. Moving around was difficult and took some real effort on my behalf.

The lights were turned off at about 11, 11:15 or so (T+0:55), and suddenly things got a lot more interesting. Visuals became much more apparent, and my face in the mirror was melting. I looked over at S and she was really morphing around, turning very troll like (in a cool and non frightening way). We were starting to wonder when C would get back with weed, because we all wanted to go down to the beach and smoke up, the lethargic come up of the trip subsiding. Eventually he arrived, and W rolled a couple joints. All our spirits were very high, and everyone was having a great time. C did a few more shots of rum before we left, and we headed out.

It was about a 15 minute walk to the beach, and it took a while for me to get accustomed to the coldish weather and light rain, but it was all right. I soon forgot about the elements, and got engaged in some good mushroom conversations (you know the ones... they go no where and are really hard to figure out, but still fun), but I was feeling myself starting to fall deeper into introspection, which I often get at the peak of a trip.

Once we got to the beach we sparked up a couple joints, and passed them around. I was instantly reminded of the previous summer when this beach was our regular smoking pot hang out. I hadn't been there in about 6 months, but all the good times flooded back. I had a big stupid grin on my face, and soon the pot kicked my trip into hyperspace. I wasn't feeling like it was a pot high, more a much stronger mush high. It really elevated me and put me into the mushroom headspace.

It was about midnight at this point (T+1:40), and I was getting serious fractal patterns of cut out gingerbread mushroom men on the sand/rocks around me. Memories of other childhood beach settings continued to flood back, and I began to feel removed from my current life, as though I had been plucked out of normal time/reality and put into observational mode, so I could take a wide angle view of my life. I was thinking about my life and where I'm going as a person, and what drugs me to me, and all the rest of it. Over the next little while I left the rest of the group for about 30-45 minutes and lost myself in thought.

I came to several valuable conclusions at this point, and since I knew that I wouldn't be in this mindset for very long, I tried very very hard to associate the conclusions I drew with certain objects and scenes around me in order to remember them better. The things I learned were for the most part very personal and too hard to explain to others, but I learned a couple general lessons too.

1) Time just happens, and you're making new memories and new experiences all the time. Remembering good times and reminiscing is fun, but don't forget to keep living.

2) Everyone is on Earth together, within the same twisted enigma, and the only thing we can do is compare our experiences and share experiences in order to come to our own truths. No one really knows any more than anyone else, but I'll definitely admit that some people think more.

3) Life is way too hard to comprehend, so revel in the mystery of it. No one is ever going to figure it out, including me or you (which doesn't mean you shouldn't try), but remember that the mystery is part (most?) of the beauty.

Eventually I came to this third conclusion after thinking for a long time, and I felt satisfied that I could start to pull my mind out of hyperspace, so I rejoined the group. They were just heading back now, and I rejoined them. I still wasn't really able to partake in conversation, but I had a good time listening and smiling and being in awe of life. On the way back I was very much entranced by the thought that we're all adventurers in this together, headed for some goal that's different for each of us, and I think I started taking things a little bit too seriously for the situation. I reminded myself that I was in fact just some kid on mushrooms on a friday night, and I laughed my ass off at that, spontaneously, without having said anything for the past 15 minutes or so. I've always thought that the universe and fate have a tremendous sense of humour and irony, and this was it again.

Lesson 4) Don't take yourself seriously. It doesn't work when it all boils down to it.

I was now walking with S, and I remembered 2 things I had put in my pocket before I left my house: a deck of cards, and a little piece of cardstock that said, "What's a girl to do?" S was looking enigmatic and enjoying herself, so I handed the "What's a girl to do?" card to her. She didn't know what to make of it, and couldn't answer the question, so she handed it back to me. I started shuffling cards in the middle of a very quiet intersection, and she said something about "shuffling cards in the middle of the road". For some reason it sounded a lot more meaningful then, although neither of us knew why.

Eventually we made it back to R's place at about 1:00 (T+2:20), and I was really slowing down off my peak. We busted out a big bong and went back inside to a soft bed to relax and listen to music. I queued up and put on a John Aquaviva Live @ 102 set, some Chemical Bros stuff, Transcend Me by Afronaught and the Radio One set from Stakka and Skynet. All very very cool stuff whether tripping or sober.

The 5 trippers and C (who was very very drunk/stoned) had the usual post peak conversations and the like, and it was odd, all of us are friends with C, but because he was drunk and we were bemushroomed, we were on very different wavelengths. Normally I wouldn't have felt a distance from him, but this time I did. I think non trippers can really weird out a group, even if they're great people.

At this point I whipped out the deck of cards again, and this proceeded to amuse us for the rest of the night. I know a bunch of card tricks which I tried to execute, and even though I did all of them very badly, I got very good results, as everyone was amazed. It was hard to make sure people knew what the point of the trick was though. I'd strongly advise anyone to pull out some cards the next time they trip, it was great fun.

S eventually comandeered 5 cards for herself which she held onto for the rest of the night, and she would rearrange the cards in her hand to get new ones. R got the rest of the deck and proceeded to mystify the hell out of the rest of us on a big organizing quest of his that we were all really confused about that went on for about 30 minutes. We would all be trying to convince him to either give up some cards or tell us what was going on, and he would do neither.

Eventually he asked, "S, do you have a 3 of clubs?"

"No."

"No? What do you mean no? You have to!"

He got very bothered about this, and after we cajoled him, he finally told us that he was trying to figure out what cards S had by sorting the rest of the deck and using deduction. We eventually decided that there must've only been 51 cards in the deck. A load was lifted from all our minds.

The rest of the night was spent reflecting and conversing and for me, cuddling with S, until we finally all went home and passed out from both mental and physical exhaustion.


All in all this was an awesome trip for me because not only did I have a really good time, but I came to some fairly life changing conclusions. I had no nausea for the first time (yay!) and virtually no hang over today, and I managed to connect with S and N in a way I never had before. Also as a bonus, I think I've finally found a dose that I'm really comfortable with for social recreational use.

Thanks for reading this far.


The road goes ever on and on,
-Pat