A Mind-Bending Adventure

Amount: 2.8-3g dry psilocybe natalensis munched with orange juice.

Intaker: person, with almost zero experience with psychedelics or any other mind-altering drugs (except for alcohol - I've had it aplenty in my life). Nearly first-timer; 3 years of mild daily SSRI intake (20mg Paxil).

Set and setting: no preparation whatsover. Comfy youtubing with wife.

The trip itself: TL;DR I got broken, had to gather myself bit by bit and succeeded.

A bit of background:

I take SSRI medications daily because of panic/anxiety disorder (and reactive depression) for around 3 years. What I wanted to achieve with mush, after reading recent researches, feedbacks on internet etc: to replace therapist with self-insights, pills - with shrooms. But ultimately, I wanted to see some magic and live through something I've never had before --- to be honest, I am quite tired of my quite mundane life, that has almost nothing "interesting" or appealing to me; it's like living in a somewhat greyscale, boring world.

First time I took shrooms a week ago with my wife --- it was a bit more than gram of natalensis (dry). All I had during that "trip" is a bit brighter colours, a little bit wobbly-woozy members, uplifting mood, and a thing people call here "clear headspace", whereas my wife (0.7g) had the funny caleidoscopic visuals, good mood, light-headedness and more. Knowing the amploa of Natalensis as "cubes but stronger", this experience was overwhelmingly dissappointing, to say the least. After some research I found out that when on SSRI, you need either multiply the "normal human" dosage by 2-3 or feel nothing. Okay then! That became a precursor to my yesterday trip.

At around 9PM I took ~3g of powdered natalensis, mixed with orange juice. The first hour-two it was nothing --- quite a comfy dissappointment, spiced with wooziness, mild stoned effect: it was hard to concentrate and "gather" the thoughts into more or less coherent, consistent form; I also sometimes concentrated on wallpaper patterns for short time. There were some slight visuals, such as jumpy TV-screen, brighter lights both in room and devices (as if someone on all my digital screens turned up brightness to 140% of their maximum) --- apparently, the room became much lighter in places where the direct light from my ceiling lamp was going; whereas the "dark corners", such as distant corners of room and the balcony, became much more ambient and shadowy. And this is the moment where it starts getting funny.

First more prominent visuals came abruptly --- I simply perceived that the view has changed, but knew not when it happened: it was as if the TV screen lost its black frame and tried to blend into the table it sits on. Somewhere here I also lost track of time and had some memory issues - I literally could not remember what happened 20 minutes ago on screen. Face of the youtube vlogger, meanwhile, started some methamorphosis: her eyes got bigger, retinae changed colours after each camera point-of-view perspective change, whereas her face became somewhat... froggish? I mean, it somewhat changed the shape to a more profoundly round one, maybe even the skin tone was slightly off.

I don't remember when the video ended, as I already had a warped perception of time and presence, so we decided to go to sleep and do our pre-bed chores: doing dishes, brushing teeth, cleaning after cats etc. When I went to kitchen I felt something like losing the train of thought - I couldn't remember what I was doing on kitchen, what time was it etc. Automatically I managed to do the dishes and brushed my teeth, but all the time I was wondering what I am doing here, how I got here (I had been constantly forgetting that I take the shrooms), wondered why do I even grow and take shrooms, what for? The mirror in my toilet shaked, as if a slight earthquake was happening while I had a toothbrush in my mouth.

When I came back to bedroom, I understood that some things (such as wallclock) looked far away, the digits were very small; the colours around me, the tints - almost imperceptibly changed. I decided to lie down and go on with it, and it's when the trip got bad - by bad I mean that somehow I had started feeling my heartbeat, felt as if I my health was rapidly deteriorating. I had gotten into a bad mood loop - got my blood pressure monitor, saw some crazy digits (like 110 heartbeat, 180/100 systolic/diastolic pressure), and started worrying and panicking. Worrying and panicking, as you may suppose, did not help the digits go down.

For some time I was in this state and had to constantly remind myself that I'm on shrooms, I'm not dying or else, there is no need to call for an ambulance (which we sometimes did when I had my first panic attacks with high blood pressure - very nasty experience during which you feel like if you are losing consciousness, dying etc), and even if we call ambulance - what then? At most they'll give me a pill for blood pressure (I have such pills also in my closet). Then what - tell them I grow shrooms, get to clinic, sleep it over and then have legal issues with cops for growing, lose my access to firearm and more? It was reasonable for me to wait it out, which I eventually did and very happy about it. All this bad-mood loop was spiced with derealization (sometimes couldn't understand what time is it, where I am, loss of ability to navigate in space; memory holes).

Besides constantly calming myself, I also had to tell my wife that everything is fine, it's all shrooms and in my head, I'm not dying etc --- she was very concerned and disapproved my hobby. I texted a friend of mine who had some acid psychedelics experience but almost had no shrooms; he reassured me that it's okay to have the memory holes, dere(person)alization when on drugs; the best advice that saved the day was stop focusing on anything specific, let it go and listen to some calming, relaxing music. Found some "shroom calming music" on my apple music, put on my pods and tried to calm myself and stop resisting. It worked, and I went into another level of trip. Here's mush once and for all said to me: "Hey, fucker, you wanted some magic and took too much? Learn now".

It was strange, scary and overwhelming. I literally forgot who I am, what I am, where I am etc. It felt as some nothingness, and it took me so much effort to remember at least SOME bits of my being: my life; occupation; where I live, with whom I live and so on. I had to constantly remind myself that I ate shrooms and how much I ate. And even then, when I remembered one thing, I forgot another - it was as if I could hold only one thing in my mind. Bit by bit, meticulously I started gathering myself: name here, location there, some recent news from my homeland close by; faces of relatives, names of coworkers - somewhere else near, but farther than essentials, etc.

Among my life parts there were some other bits - you see, I do have multiple accounts for various occasions, such as disposable discord account for shroomery: I want to remain anonymous and avoid any unwanted law interest, especially considering here's somewhere a person who actually knows my identity. So I had to throw these bits out to gather me (because it's a fake account, another identity which is not me) to continue the trip of self-construction. My wife (and her role in this trip is tremendous, essentials) - I didn't have to remember her because I never have forgotten; I was literally hugging her while tripping, so she worked as some kind of anchor that, you know, connects me to the real world. And in times when I repeatedly forgotten my name I still always had a "place" to start square one from. The trip gave me insights:

1. In this I understood that I have to do something to repair my relationships --- you see, the relationship was really good for some time, but depression, moving from warzone and boring domestic life decayed it much. We had squarrels caused by some puny reasons, misunderstanding etc. And it felt at that moment so miniscule, so unimportant - why would anyone fight because of such trifle details? What gives? During this trip my attitude somewhat warped, and I rediscovered anew how important the time with her is and how we should actually start spending our time together, but consciously, doing some real quality time together instead of blank, dumb everyday youtube-and-sleep or mindlessly sitting in our smartphones.

2. I rediscovered that I still cannot let go of my beloved cat which we couldn't save from his ailment. And still cannot whole-heartedly love the other cat, we saved from the shelter recently after our cat passed (well, this one looked similar to ours, had his paws injured in a cat fight, no one wanted him because he was a teenager cat and not as cute and nice looking as he is now - most people like cute, clean and healthy kittens, not broken cats with both mental and physical traumas). How comes we "saved"? Well, no one wanted him, and veterinarians had no other option than to treat him, heal his injures and get him back to streets.

Basically, mushrooms resurfaced all my suppressed memories and feelings and showed them to me. It's how I felt or at least *want to think* it felt - the experience cannot be objective because it's already warped by trip-reports of other people and their experience, so I somewhat was aware of what could happen and maybe subconsciously directed myself this road. Nevertheless.

After all that I somewhat rediscovered myself, found out the mushrooms had been wearing off a little and letting me loose from their mycelial embrace. The music, mandalas in my ears were calming and I felt really good, energized and uplifted. I even heard harmonica, quite simple, literally one-note breath-ins and -outs, that somehow resonated inside my head and body, filling everything with iridescence.

At around 2AM my trip abruptly ended - it was simply as if someone turned off some switch; one moment you are listening to a heavenly mandalas, hug your wife and shake your head to the rhythm, in another - you are lying in your bed with pods in ears and listening to some relaxation, repeating patterns.

First thoughts were "oh jesus christ what was that", it was an unreal feeling - I couldn't understand whether it really happened or not, and what actually happened if it did. It felt like I've awoken from a thousand-year slumber. Energetic, full of excitement. I wanted to share it, but well, reasonably decided not to wake up my wife because all that was happening to me (her seeing my blood pressure, having some visible struggles in my head and sitting with me till 1am to make sure I was okay) didn't happen to her, and I've already ruined her good-night's sleep.

So I went to kitchen, called my psychedelic friend and tried to describe the experience as good as I could. Well, it was quite difficult to explain and very incoherent: it felt as if I was cockroach hunting, where coherence and thoughts are nimble, agile beasts that are doing everything in their power to escape me; especially if compared to this slab of text. But still, he was there to listen and I appreciated it.

For now, I have a really good, energetic mood and my head is clear. It is much more clear than it was before the trip - it's much easier for me to keep concise conversation, to write in a stream of consciousness and get "right words" into my laptop, while being understandable and more-or-less easy to read. This was how I had died and liked it. It was a tremendous spiritual experience which I grateful to shrooms for. The next trip, as mycelium said, will take place after I deal with my health issues and problematic relationship. And that's my last post from this discord account (initially, I posted it on Discord) as you can understand from my experience - gotta start gathering out essentials and brushing off things like that.