First time tripping - Amanita Muscaria

August 2025

I had been interested in psychedelics for years up to this point. The idea that consumption of things that grew naturally around us could so drastically change us fascinated me more than anything, and it still does. I spent hours upon hours researching the effects of both Psilocybe and Amanita sp. , reading trip reports, Learning how to identify them, preparing myself to go out and hopefully find some myself.

September 2025

Mushroom season was rolling in and I felt like I finally knew everything I needed to know to go out and start foraging. I had scouted my local area for spots I deemed viable for growth, monitored weather forecasts to determine the best days to go looking, even asked friends to accompany me in my search, though they weren’t as eager about this as I was.

We spent the following month and a half scouring every grassland we could for liberty caps, finding dozens of lookalikes but sadly not a single lib caught our eye, and having entirely forgotten about Amanita Muscaria, we admitted defeat and considered this season a failure, in hopes that the next year would be more promising.

October 2025

It was mid afternoon and I was driving home when something caught my eye, on the side of the road, hidden behind a large holly bush, was a vibrant red circle covered in small white warts - Amanita Muscaria. The joy I felt in that moment was unparalleled, 2 months of preparation had finally payed off. I got home, grabbed a small paper bag, and practically ran back to the small patch of grass, my mind racing as I cut the cap from the mushroom, placed it in the bag and returned home.

I couldn’t help but let the giddiness get to me and unfortunately this lead to my first mistake - forgetting to weigh it. This was incredibly stupid and I’m very lucky that I didn’t end up having a trip that was too intense to handle. Fly agarics can vary wildly in potency, with some mushrooms containing 15x the amount of Ibotenic acid as others. PLEASE be careful if planning to consume it.

I cut up the cap, which was originally around 20cm in diameter, into smaller triangular slices and dehydrated them over the course of a day before extracting the muscimol into hot (but not boiling) water over the course of an hour. During this time, I called my friend and asked them if they could tripsit, which they thankfully agreed to. Once he arrived, I poured my mushroom juice into a mug, and added a lemon & ginger teabag in hopes of masking the taste, which only partially worked.

I drank the tea slowly, over the course of an hour, trying to ease myself into the nausea that came with it and also giving myself time to push past the sub-par taste of my concoction.

From this point, I waited for about 45 minutes for the effects to kick in, and I found myself rather impatient for the trip to start which lead to my second, more serious mistake.

Please for the love of god, don’t smoke weed on mushrooms, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing, which I definitely didn’t.

Nevertheless, me and my friend shared a small spliff, in hopes that it would not only kick-start my trip, but also calm him down a little and help him be a more relaxing sitter - both of which wishes were granted.

Almost immediately, I felt compelled to lie down in bed, which is where I stayed for the next two hours with my eyes closed. Slowly, the darkness of my vision began to fill with what looked like multicoloured sparks, which then assembled into a maze-like structure in the centre of my vision, I was in awe with what I saw, this maze gave off a green light and slowly morphed in its layout like a snake slithering around in a loop. Suddenly, I felt my consciousness detach from my body and be pulled out into space, I was still completely aware of my body and never lost awareness of my body or surroundings in the trip but my soul and vision had completely detached from my head. The maze transformed into a window, looking down on earth. I was within a large purple sphere, presumably some kind of spacecraft, hovering just far enough away from our planet to take in all of its beauty. After a moment, the spacecraft dissolved and I was floating in space, being pulled by an invisible force at the speed of light out into the universe. I saw other planets, galaxies, I saw the expansion of the universe right before my eyes. I was taken to a distant galaxy, an incomprehensible distance from the Milky Way, and eventually pulled down to a small red planet, on which there was life.

Large whale-like beings swam through the sky, using a large sack of gas to float in a similar way to a blimp. They had long antennae drifting from their heads, and they payed no notice to me as they floated by me. A second species appeared moments later, more humanoid in shape though they giant and also floating. They wore long flowing garments similar to dresses though it was if the clothing was a part of their body, not an accessory. None of these beings payed any attention to me but I was in utter awe of them, to the point that I began to silently cry.

After a couple of minutes had passed in this galaxy, I was taken back to earth and my consciousness was re-attatched to my body, though I chose to stay lay still with my eyes closed for a moment, focusing on the sensation of warmth flowing through me.

I then saw a hand made of tv static outstretched from behind me out infront of me, and I felt compelled to do the same with my own hand. Another hand made of tv static stretched out from far infront of me and interlocked fingers with the first hand, which I took as a signal to talk to my sitter for the first time in the trip so far. I asked him to hold my hand, which he did after a few moments. Instantly, the two hands I saw turned into wires, connecting me and my friend on what felt like a molecular level. My consciousness was transferred into his body and I gained the ability to read his thoughts, view his memories and feel from his nerve endings. I saw every memory he ever had on thousands of screens moving slowly across my vision, with the closest and largest screen showing him as a very young child jumping on a trampoline. Upon questioning, he agreed to the existence of this memory, which in the moment I took as confirmation that what I was seeing was real.

I let go of his hand and thanked him, opening my eyes for the first time since the trip started. My walls were breathing gently and psychedelic geometry outlined my vision. Upon making eye contact with my sitter, I watched his face morph into that of an alien, stretched out and deep blue in colour. I watched this alien stare me down and lick its lips with a forked tongue, grinning with clear negative intent. This sight terrified me to my core. I closed my eyes and saw a kitchen which felt familiar to me though I did not recognise it at all, at the kitchen table, one chair was pulled out and a large red question mark sat in it. I took this to mean that I did not know if my sitter was human or not, and I had to confirm that he was who I thought he was. I interrogated him briefly on past events to ensure he was my friend and not an alien imposter. Once I closed my eyes again, I saw the same scene but now my friend was sat at the table in place of the question mark, signaling to me that he was human and that I was safe. A great sense of relief washed over me at this and I was able to lie back down and close my eyes.

Over the next half an hour, I saw seemingly random scenes play out infront of me, from water towers exploding into balls of colour, planes of tv static rising and falling around me, to a metronome ticking in a deep red room. None of these scenes had any significance to me, and I know there are many that I have since forgotten unfortunately.

At this point, the trip had decreased in intensity by a lot, and I felt far more present and comfortable in my surroundings. Upon telling this to my sitter, he asked if it was alright for him to start heading home as It was getting late, which I said was alright and I wished him a safe journey. I spent some more time with my eyes closed watching these random scenes unfold before the visual effects wore off and I opened my eyes again. A wave of tiredness passed through my body and I felt an intense urge to go to sleep, which I did. And I had one of the best nights sleep of my life. I woke up the next morning energised and overjoyed at my experience, and spent the next few days with noticably decreased anxiety and social awkwardness.

This trip was profound in many ways despite a lack of insight and personal development. It fuelled the fire that was my passion for psychedelia and most importantly, reminded me that there was so much left in my life to discover, and I knew that these discoveries would come to me under the influence of psychedelics.

I also learned what not to do from this trip, and since have been far more careful when it came to how I approached the experience, please never make the same mistakes that I did, I am very lucky that I enjoyed the experience as much as I did and things could definitely have gone wrong for me.

Thank you all for reading, this is the first trip report I have ever written so I apologise if my writing is poor, but I think I’ve gotten across everything that I can remember.

Mush love <3