The bad place

I've done shrooms 4 times within the past four or so months. The first time was with the relatively weak Mexican variety, the second with Ecuadorian, the third with Hawaiian, and the fourth time with Ecuadorians again. Each time it has been with pretty good friends. Indeed, the first three times i had done the mushrooms (each time bought and eaten fresh) the experience had been pretty much wonderful, especially the first time i did the Ecuadorians, lying out in the sun with the usual blissful happiness and laughter, all the while seeing things merging into each other etc. I'm a slightly paranoid individual in normal circumstances, and this hit me slightly as i was coming down the first 3 times but not in any way severe enough to outweigh the beneficial effects of the high.

However, the fourth time i did the shrooms was somewhat different and I had no idea what was in store. I hadn't eaten for about 36 hours for some unknown reason. I was going away to university in a few days time so i got my best friends to do the mushrooms with me at his house, which was free until 4 o clock. We took the mushrooms at 12 or so - about a dose and a half each. Time was a little tight - we had to be out of his house by 4, but id done the shrooms before and thought i could deal with it. We spent the first few hours outside - it was sunny but cold. The come up was the most intense i had ever experienced, the world kept folding back on itself revealing what looked like gateways into other dimensions. I could use bright objects as a sort of paintbrush - looking at it, and then at something else and it became that colour. we went into the nearby forest and used the massive zipwire thingy my friend had made - if you've seen the movie stargate, where they go into the portal, it was pretty much like that. The sky rippled as if we were under a great sea. Great rays of purple energy twisted and curled around the sun in the fashion of a magnetic field. THis kinda thing went on for a bit, and i was a child again. Things were going well, just like before, but better. No interruptions and it would probably have been the best trip of my life.

...but then, my friends sister came home unexpectedly. Then my friend got very worried and said he had to clear up. He seemed to control himself remarkably well, and started talking to his sister. But then i said some dumb things..as one does when one has been taking hallucinogenic drugs (lol)....and suddenly i felt as if i had committed some terrible social wrong. and for the next hour or so (15 hours in shroom time), i was ashamed of every move i made. i kept thinking people were pointing at me out of cars and windows as we walked to the nearby field, ready to kick me out of society for some terrible wrong i'd done. i actually believed this was true. i felt truly worthless and stupid, a terrible thing when you are shroomed up and helpless. I had such an urge to jump in front of passing cars just to make the paranoia go away but i stopped myself somehow.

Anyway we made it to the field, sat down on a bench...eventually the paranoia started to pass. It got colder, the sun went in, and the world was grey and windy - but it was beautiful. I could actually see the wind as a kind of blue flame, and although i was freezing cold, it didnt feel the same..it felt electric. Then we began to talk, in our way, about the deepest of matters - the nature of being, of society. We're pretty intelligent people and have studied philosophy. I shant go into details but we talked to the extent that we suddenly found ourselves gaping at absolute oblivion. It was as if, in one moment, it suddenly dawned upon us that there was absolutely "nothing". We struggled with the concept, stripping away different parts of ourselves, and levels of being, but when we got to the very basic level, we found and unbearable and incomprehensible void of nothingness. All faith, hope, warmth and love had disappeared. we were in the darkest place imaginable. somewhere in that void, i even forgot how to speak and understand language, so disassembled was my mind. The detail of the world became faded, to the point at which it was a deep blue haze. At that point, i knew nothing and was nothing. The self had completely disappeared and nothing was certain. Horrible realizations about the nature of being (the whole "there is no god, everything is a chemical illusion, and we're just animals barely, in truth, in control of ourselves" thing), and of the universe, were pretty much overkill in such a helpless state. We both knew the truth - the deep down truth, that everyone denies. I wont try to offend anyone by saying it.

This went on....and slowly, we started to reassemble our shattered minds. We walked to this beautiful hilly park, it looked so purple and blue and beautiful. We were calming down now, having regained most of our control. The sky was sotrmy, and everything felt so "final", or conclusive. Eventually we walked to a nearby take away outlet and got some food - that we just played with for a bit, then threw away lol. After that my friend got a call from his gf. She was so mad hed got shroomed up instead of seeing her. So he really really had to go, and i understood - BUT there was a problem. I had cancelled work to get shroomed up - i thought wed be out all night. but if i went back now, still slightly out of it, my mum would know id been up to no good. so i faced the prospect of wandering about, alone, still on shrooms, in the cold, nowhere to go. was damn scary. Well anyway, to cut a long story short, an old friend saved my ass by letting me round for a few hours. After the effects had worn off, i felt very numb, but was so glad to have escaped a hell i thought would never end.

Sorry if this turned into a philosophy discussion lol. But i'd just like to warn everyone that if you're gonna take the shrooms, esp. if you're a little bit paranoid and unconfident like I am, make sure that you have absolutely no commitments, and nothing that you have to do, also make sure there are No unexpected arrivals because even the tiniest events can completely wreck you. i intend to do mushrooms again, but only in COMPLETELY free and safe surroundings, and anyway not for a while, as it probably fucks you up a bit. never underestimate the mushroom