Playing Catch Like a Child again !

50/3g Philospher's Stones

5:40 PM

So lets see, we are on a residential course and are staying in some student accommodation. My friends and I are in one particular flat (which he have totally to ourselves) and each of us have our own rooms.

I divided up 50 grams Philisopher's Truffles from www.potseeds.co.uk (fresh and legal) three ways. My two friends and I started eating them, we had a pint of water each on hand. My two friends will be reffered to as G and A. So A was sitting on the bed, I was sitting on a chair and G was standing up. G had particular issues with the taste / thought of downing these truffles and just *could not eat them* - he threw up just about every time he put something into his mouth. I saw him at one point hurling, and he projected water into his sick almost like he was a fountain. A and I, just concentrated on munching and swallowing.

So G gave up on eating them, but A and I finished our 16+2/3 grams dose. I had quite an adrenaline rush, and I knew this was going to be one intensive experience. As it was a very sunny day, each of us brought sun specs and were now wearing them at this point.

I will not talk about G much more, as he had not managed to take the truffles and so effects were minimal.

6:00 PM

G, A, and I walked to supper in the canteen. We sat next to many 'non shrooming' people, and did not eat anything (cause we were worried about being sick, or the effects coming on too soon). Horrible feelings of paranoia and anxiety began to kick in. I began thinking "what on earth have I done to myself" and "don't worry too much it will be over in the morning - surely ?".. this was around the time the initial effects started coming. One of my non tripping friends speech started to slow down / speed up, and bits of what he was saying would get mixed up, ie he would be talking coherently, then there would be a *blip* and he would say somethign which did not properly follow on from what he way saying (ie I missed some part of the sentence). I found this inability to comphrehend my friends rather disconcerting. I started to feel hot, slightly sweaty and really awful. This was perhaps worsened by the fact there were 3 non shroomers on the table (two of which were girls, which did not even know we were on shrooms at the time). My friend A and I were really worried about appearing normal, and this got worse and worse, until A and I made a lame excuse and left...

A said "I feel really tired now, I think I am going to goto bed", and I said "yeah so do I"

6:25

G, A and I all walked back to our flat. By this time, many negative thoughts were swimming around. G had been sick, and A and I had been feeling really paranoid. A kept on saying he "would love to be sick", and felt like sleeping. At this point the shroom intoxication felt much like a poisonoing, and A, and I almost felt like we were temporairily 'ill' and would just go sleep it off and hopefully return to normal. At that point A 'hurled' into the sink... he puked and puked and puked. I left the room, and went into another. A started saying that he went blind for a few seconds just as he hurled (he said he got one really massive headrush).

So lets jump out a bit, and think what's going on here. My friend A had just hurled his guts out, my friend G could not eat any of them ( he was sick instantly )... and I had not been sick yet, felt paranoid and was now extremely anxious about what was going to happen to me !!!!

[At this point my estimations of time are very sketchy, and the order of events may have been lost slightly]

6:45

One of my non tripping friends came back into the flat. Things started to look up from this point (thank god!). This is when I started to get intensive visuals. I was just lying down in my bed looking up at the ceiling. The ceiling had a certain textured finish, almost like ribs, and was creamish in colour. The ribbed texture began re-arranging itself on my ceiling and I felt almost like my mind was trying to make 'words' out of the celing - though I could not read them. Things started to get even more intensive.. I decided to enter the room with all my friends in it and lay down on the bed. The ceilling bagan to feel exactly like it was coming down on me, and I felt all the walls arround me were closing in. I actually laughed at this, and descibred it to my friends. A said that he experienced 'exactly that'. I kept on saying "we are in XXX college, we're in such and such flat, I'm with my friends, and the idea that the walls / ceilign could close in on us was absurd !!" at this, my friends all laughed. At this point things were really beginning to look up. We decided a change in scene was necessary so we went outside. G gave A a tennis racket and ball , and we ventured out onto a field.

G was very helpful, at giving us the essentials "sunglasses (if you trip on a sunny day, make sure you get some of these, otherwise your eyes will *burn*), comforting words and reassuring smiles" G is exactly the kind of guy you want with you whilst shrooming, he felt like my guardian angel at that point in time !

The field has many students sitting in the middle of the grass. G re-assured me that they were all totally drunk, and wouldn't give a crap about anything we did. So A and I were just walking around on this field, observing the beauty around us. Now when you are tripping on shrooms, the amount of sensory information coming into your brain is too much (hence visual effects like 'tearing' - when you look behind you instead of yuour vision continually updating it updated in chunks, also music slows down and skips because if it takes your brain 10 seconds to process 1 second of music, (and take my word for it, that 1 second is amazing, and you will appreciate the music like you never have done before) then it will appear like it has slowed down, and to keep up the music must 'skip'.). So anyway, my friend and I sat cross legged on the grass. The grass looked amazing. I was aware of myself being 'aware' of every single blade of grass I looked at, and each seemed to be moving in its own way. A and I agreed that we felt like we could see the grass 'growing'. A and I were amazed by our skin, as we could see patterns on it that we could never see before. (this 'ringed' pattern is very hard to describe but seemed to be 'pulsating' and 'waving' slightly).

And then, we started to play 'catch'. The intensity of this experience will be hard to convey with text - but I will do my best ! A and I felt like gods, we were the only two people that existed in our worlds, just us, the tennis racket and the ball. Other people around us no longer mattered. The conversations of the people in the middle of the field were on big blur - A and I joked about this ! I felt totally superhuman. Now, normally I am not good at catching ball / do not really try hard - and when I do I am worried about catching it in the gaze of other people around me (I am a very self conscious person, and this seriously gets in the way of my catching ability). But now, I felt superhuman, and I but an enormous amount of effort into catching the ball. I really lept for it. The ball felt amazing. It felt like something I really needed to look after and protect - like a little creature. I dived, ran, jumped and fumbled at the ball in the air. Time felt it slowed down, as I was concentrating so hard on catching the ball. I could make catches that I could never make before, and A and I were amazed at this.. and laughed with some of my more impressive catches. A and I felt like a team, he had the racket, and I had the ball, so I would throw it at him, he would hit it and I would catch it. We did this over large distances, and then came up close and did it really fast, throw - hit - catch - throw - hit - catch... with my knewfound ability to catch the ball, and also throw it where I wanted - and also keep it up in the air, hitting it with the palm of my hand - I felt like a kid running around in the field with all the joys of the world. A felt just like this as well.

Oh, and the trailing !

For quite a while now, and also in the flat before we came out to play ball, I got massive trailing. Back in the flat G was waving his hands like a bird, and I could see previous 'frames' reamaining in my vision so that it seemed like he had 10 or so pairs of arms. (So wherever his arms were at in his flapping motion, I could see them where they were at a few milli seconds ago, and a few milli seconds ago before that, as well - and perhaps around 10 of these additional 'frames' were existent in my vision). I was utterly amazed at this, trailing, blurring effect. I found that when I closed my eyes, the previous 'frame' remained almost as if I hadn't closed my eyes. G's bed was almost 'breathing' the duvet seemed to be 'shimmering' or 'breathing' almost like water. G was by this point really dissapointed he had threw up, and jealous of the amazing effects I was describing to him.

So anyway, the trailing ! The ball, was appeared like one continous stream. Imagine, taking a picture with a reallly slow shutter speed, with everything still except the ball being thrown perpendicular to the line of sight of the camera (accross the screen). The ball would be one continous stream for the length of the shutter opening / closing - this is what I experienced - though. Though sometimes, rather than the continous trailing, I would get the trailing like with the arms, where I saw many balls at once. ( I was always clear which balls / arms were the 'trailing' ones though !

So this trailing, slurred speech of the people in the middle, superhuman catching ability, lovely sunny day and gently breeze made me feel like I was in heaven.

A and I swapped sunglasses for fun, and at this point we walked round the back of the building by the field. And oh my god, we walked into the sun, (the building was shading the field) - and everything looked INCREDIBLE. The way the sun shone through the trees, was absolutely divine. A and I decided to stay at this spot for a bit, and hit the tennis ball against the wall several times. The 'bouncing' sound the ball made was absolutely astonishing (it had a slightly echo to it) and I can still recall it. So we were playing ball against the wall for a bit, admiring this astonishing sound when the ball got caugt in the bush. We started to pull apart a hole in the bush with our hands. A and I started laughing ourselves silly, because it felt like we were opening a massive portal. We agreed that we felt we could burrow into this hole (almost like it was a portal to a new dimension), like rabbits ! A jokingly said 'We've lost that one I think"... at this I burst out laughing as it really, was incredibly funny.

A and I walked back to our flat. We then started to philosophise about 'Through the looking Glass'. This was prompted by observing certain marks on a wall in the kitchen, which resembled an arc. The wall looked like Monet's Footbridge painting, and had a tremendous 3D appearance. I joked with my friend about entering it. I thought that this part of the wall seemed just like an opening to the garden in the painting - and hence the link with "through the looking glass" where a fantasy world is seen through a 2 dimensional surface.

A turned on the tap in the kitchen, and the water looked ASTOUNDING! I have never appreciated the beauty of running water like I did then. So sparkly, and complicated it was just wonderful.

Throughout the trip I experienced a peculiar headache - a form of migraine - I have no idea why I get this when under the influence of shrooms, but it's rather nasty. At times it felt like the wind was blowing on an exposed part of my brain ! :/ I didn't let this bother me too much, though.

A, G and I decided we would goto the pub. I had very negative thoughts about this idea, but in the end it turned out fine. I went to the toilet in our flat, and I remember talking to the toilet, it felt to me like the toilet had an existence of its own - strange. We had to walk throught eh college at one point, and I remember some posters, changing colours - and an ATM which almost seemed alive... it made funny noises as my friend was getting more and more annoyed with it, as it seemed reluctant to give out cash!

The pub experience was incredibly surreal. I remember some friends from the residential who I knew pretty well, entering and thinking "oh goodness I hope they don't try and talk to me". Everything in the pub seemed very strange. The bartender looked most peculiar, and a part of the pub which had a snooker table in it looked most peculiarly large. Eventually A and I sat down with some other friends from the residential (who had no idea we were tripping). The straws around the glasses were incredibly strange, bending, stretching and contracting... with some having a strangely multi-coloured texture ... even though I knew they were a single continous colour. There were some pink wafers on the table, and I remember eating them - and they tasted absolutely fantastic. The taste overpowered me, I devoured several !!! As I was drinking lots of water during this experience, I had to goto the toilet quite often. I went at one point and looked at myself in the mirror. My pupils were gigantic ! To my horror, I realised that I should have kept my sunglasses on, and put them on there and then. I remember feeling incredibly tall in the urinal and my um err thing.. appearing to be incredibly small :/.. there was a hole in the urinal which I thought, seemed like an opening to a new world.

I was able to talk at times, and I asked someone for a set of pictures they had. The pictures seemed incredibly 3D, many were of dogs.. and they seemed to come out at me. Where pictures had only part of someone standing - (ie cut out someones upper body / legs) I was able to imagine the 'rest' of the picture more than I could usually. There was a picture of a beach, (from the water, looking onto the sand). There were lots of people on the sand and I could see them milling around in the picture. I closed my eyes, and visualised myself in a fantastic beach, sitting on a chair looking onto the sea.. - that was incredible!

During the course of the conversation, I started to come down, and found myself talking more and more. It was much joked about, how I was just sitting there with my dark sunglasses on (even though the sun was down), and saying very little.

That nights experience was fantastic, and I understand the importance of setting when taking shrooms, that night was very unique - the drunk people in the field (preventing us from worrying about appearing abnormal), the pub experience, the weather, my company - everything helped make the trip a pleasant experience. I look back on it, and I really had a fun time. One of the thoughts that kept running through my mind afterwards was - "you never really appreciate something until you realise that you are looking at it" - people are so bound up with themselves, that often fail to appreciate the underlying beauty of their surrounds - they are so caught up in their own thoughts etc....if you actually look at something, and are AWARE THAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT IT, you are able to appreciate things you haven't before (shrooms or no shrooms!).

As you can see I didn't really make any effort to condense this report as I didn't want to miss anything out !!! Whilst I enjoyed my experience (2nd time), it's not something I really have an urge to do over and over again.

The brain has a specific sensory balancing / filtering system set up for a good reason, and I would only recommend trying magic mushrooms if you like me, are curious as to what you might be 'missing out on' when the filtering process is disturbed. Feelings of paranoia, anxiety, peculiar headaches for some, nausea to name a few are some of the prices you pay for this 'enlightening'.

Trying them once to satisfy your curiousity is fine, (provided you're willing to suffer the consequences mentioned) - but please look into your setting - please do it with friends you trust (make sure you have a non tripping friend on hand- very important ! In my case this made all the difference !) / get on well with and please - have some nice music on