A valuable life lesson: KalEyedascope Trip - Good in a bad way, bad in a good way.

First I'll start with my specs:

Age: 17
Body weight: 74 kg's
Build: Slim, although not scrawny.
Gender: Male
Other drugs used: Cannabis before hand, about 3 or 4 cones, for which I have a very strong tolerance to (it just makes me 'hazy')

I come from the same place as the author of a level 3 trip report titled "Trip from school to circus" or something like that. We went to the same school, and if it weren't for me, they wouldn't have known the little blighters grew there. The first time I tried them was a couple of days before I moved interstate, not far from the end of season.

The mushrooms subject to examination were Psilocybe subaeruginosa. Previous to finding them, my girlfriend and I had searched high and low in the surrounding areas around our school eating every single kind of mushroom that looked remotely interesting, and to our luck we were never poisoned... someone up there was looking out for us.

When I finally had found them, I picked about 20-30 mushrooms ranging in size from extremely young (small) to about the size of an (Australian) 20c coin. I took them home and boiled all of them into a pot of water. After boiling, I strained out the mushrooms and dirt and shit and put the now boiled, and very well lubricated and slimy mushrooms back into a sealed zip-lock bag.

The water came to 2 full Powerade bottles and enough leftover for 2 big cups of mushroom coffee (very nice). After having the coffee, I then drank the 2 bottles of water over a period of 2 1/2 hours.

About half way through the first bottle (about 1/2 hour after the coffees) things started to get a bit more 'intense'. The carpet began breathing in unison with me, and the red walls in my bedroom were beginning to 'brighten up', so to speak. The tie-dyed alien sorongs and huge Peace polar fleece blanket hanging on my walls were beginning to seem very eminent, and I knew that they would probably scare me later on in the night. In the end, due to obligations to my girlfriend (I had to go see her because it was my last night in Tasmania) I hitched a ride with a friend into town. My mood before this was generally good, anticipation was strong and I was just generally curious as to what they would do.
After an upsetting phonecall, my mood was taken down and I went into town a little upset, but still looking forward to the mushrooms.
By the time I got there, I had finished the first bottle and was just 'waiting', for what? I had no idea.

I walked into the house, and we discussed things and the mood was taken back up. I then began powering down the second bottle and using it wash down the VERY slimy leftover mushrooms from the zip-lock bag. After I had finished all this, I sat down in the chair and let the effects sink in.
I suppose at first I was disappointed as to how long it was taking for them to take effect, but within half an hour of me finishing all the mushroom cocktails (taken over a period of about 2 1/2 hours) I began to feel very 'groovy' inside, not unsimilar to the feeling of ecstacy. Then I looked at the System of a Down poster on the wall, and the shadows began moving along the wall in waves of contrast, rippling across and then gently disappearing back into the paint work, spiralling outwards from the poster. I looked at one of the members in the poster and his eyes, and not any of the others, were ablaze and looking dead into me. (I later was told that System of a Down are big fans of mushrooms) His eyes, although being just a poster, seemed to know exactly what I was in for, and he seemed to be laughing at me. Then the waves of shadows begain closing in on the poster, so they weren't just shadows of the poster against the wall, but they were moving in and taking over the actual poster itself. Soon, the poster was just a mass of of waving colours that looked like a constant drip was falling into it and rippling out across the walls. The weird thing was, the poster was the only thing that was 'doing' anything. Everything else was normal, then my girlfriend turned the lights off and turned the blinking fairy lights on, and when she did that, then the whole room seemed to light up in a massive trip. I picked up my hand and moved it through the air, leaving a trail of colours behind it swirling around. This was fantastic for me because it was me doing the footwork, the trip was following my lead. I had full control of all the things I was seeing. I said to Rachel (my girlfriend) "This is fantastic, I can control the hallucinations!" she just smiled and lowered her head and said "you have no idea... just wait". This meant nothing to me at the time. I was having the time of my life pushing colours and kaleidascopes around the room. About 10 minutes later, the fairy lights started getting to me. They would blink off but the 'hallucination' lights would stay in the pitch black, blinking around the room like fireworks, growing and growing until the actual real physical lights would flicker back on and smash them to pieces. The idea popped into my head that the dark was a completely different reality altogether, then again, perhaps it wasn't even a reality, just another sub-domain of my brain. Nothing existed there but me and the fireworks and the blazing spiral of black that stretched forth into the horizon of my conscious, which was beautiful because the visualisation seemed to be intertwined with my inner being, somehow stimulating and arousing an enormous feeling of content.

The fairy lights stayed on for a good 2 hours and I was sitting there mesmerised at the fact that within the 1 second gap of darkness between flickers, I was launched into a world of insanity and nonsense for that instant, which seemed like an eternity, but actually physically felt like a second. It was the enormity of the realm that made it seem so colossal.

I was astounded. I remember that I kept thinking to myself "these... these.... these... fungi... how? why? who? what? this is amzing!"

Then I made a big mistake, I stood up and walked over to the computer, which had been playing a personal mix of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley the whole time, but to me it was just the sound of colours and fireworks in the background making everything seem so much louder. The Windows Media Player visualisations didn't do a thing for me, which I wasn't at all surprised at because I knew as soon as I looked at them that they were horrible and ugly because they were artificial and man-made and were made for try-hard acid trippers who can zone out. I was more interested in what my brain was creating. I was looking at the screen, but that was the only window of reality, because it was normal and it was like it had drilled a tunnel of 'sober' through me and that was something that I could look at and think about in a normal state of mind (changing songs, etc) but the outer edges of the monitor were blazing away like fire, warning me to keep away and enjoy the natural trip. I peered over to the other side of the room where my girlfriend was sitting and was amazed to see myself sitting there with her on my lap. I was physically looking at myself. I could see them talking to each other like I wasn't even there, but how could I not be? I was changing songs. I saw them kissing and I just sat there looking at them as the world around them was spiralling into a massive state of confusion and terror.

The walls were literally melting away into the carpet and the rose patter was moving in the exact same manner as the carpet from the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when Raoul Duke goes to the checkout at the hotel. The walls and everything on them were just melting like candles and falling into the carpet, fertilising the rose patter so that they grew up into a lush garden of bizaar looking flora, then the flowers exploded into a mass of light and colour, the fair lights had returned, but nobody turned them on.

I turned my head and looked back at the screen again and blinked aand found myself sitting in the arm chair with my girlfriend in my lap, I looked over to the other side of the room where the computer was and saw myself sitting there, staring like an idiot at the monitor. I shook my head and heard a great roaring noise behind me, I looked over and saw myself making a bowl of cereal. (can I be specific enough to say I was making Weet-Bix? I just remember that detail being very vivid) I watched myself eat it and the milk was pouring down my chin and all over my clothes, I looked down at my actual physical self and saw milk crawling up my shirt towards my face and then seeping down my arms. These were not just weird hallucinations of seeing myself, I looked so real to myself that I would have gone up and talked to him had I not known it was just crazy. Then my senses began slipping away from me. I could no longer feel myself and my physical movements had no influence over anything any more, it was all out of control. I was sitting in a tumble drier. The room was tossing and turning and the lights were eating me alive. I had to go to piss so I got up and went to the bathroom and looked back on my way out, only to see myself sitting back in the chair holding my girlfriend, to her, I hadn't even left the room (she was on them as well, although I can't tell you how many she had).

I stood in the bathroom for a good half an hour looking into the mirror. I soon came to the horrid conclusion that mirrors are triangles. The reflection is just a bizaar backwards window into another world. THe reflection looking back at me looked old and horrible. The reflections of objects in the bathroom were spinning around and morphing into each other, the toiled was eating the bathtub and the washing machine was making a terrifying noise which only put me in an even scarier trance.

I was stuck there in front of the mirror with all these ideas and theories running through my head. I tried making sense of it, and then I realised I should be trying to make sense as to why I was even trying to make sense... I should have been flat on my back laughing or drooling or just acting like a town drunk. How was I still standing? How was I still contemplating the world and all the bizaar things the mushrooms had put in it? I don't know, and I still don't know how I managed to maintain a relative level of inner calm and logic, although logic might as well have been a flying pig at the time. I peeled my eyes off the mirror (literally) and dragged myself back into the living room. I looked at the two people on the armchair (myself and my girlfriend) and said told them all about my theory on the triangular mirrors. It made no sense and was coming out in a slur, and I (the weirdo on the armchair) wasn't even listening to me, so I went back and sank myself into his body and assumed his position in the world. It was like I wasn't even gone, but I knew I had because I took a piss... I had to, I saw and felt it all. The urine leaving my penis was like a rainbow of hope and it just streamed forth into the toilet bowl and pierced the water and made it rush out in a tidal wave.

Patterns and kaleidascopes began appearing everywhere all of a sudden, as they weren't as prominent before, but now they were in and on and taking over every physical object in the room. Everything was being overrun by visualisations like the WMP visualisations. I remember thinking to myself and knowing why people would keep making them and wearing tye-dyed shirts and whatnot.
It came to the point where we needed to go outside. It was cold and it was dark and it was very late. I had no jumper on but this did not occur to me. We ventured outside into the scary big bad world, and I remember then realising why they called it that. I ran outside and punched a tree (an enormous gum tree) and it just shattered and fell to the ground. I was astounded at this awesome burst of strength I had, so I ran and punched it again (how did it get back there after I had just smashed it like a plate?) It didn't break this time, so I just let my mind wonder. We began walking towards the shop and I vaguely remember which reality/state of mind I was in. It was like the typical cinemagraphic way of showing a drunk person; to himself he is walking normally and talking normally and being very charismatic, but then it will switch and show you what everyone else is seeing and he is falling all over the place like a fool and not making sense. I was switching between these realities, and I could not tell which one I was in. In one, I was falling over everywhere and my girlfriend was having to support me (oh, how loyal), and then it would flick and I was walking normally again, thinking, "hang on, this is my brain trying to block out what I'm really doing, and I'm just getting flashbacks of it... this mask of sobriety that I'm putting on for myself is flickering on and off and I'm getting a glimpse at what I'm really doing" but eventually I knew that it was just my mind playing tricks on me, I couldn't tell who was having to hold who up... whether I was stumbling or whether Rachel was.
Somewhere along the way, I thought I had shat myself. I felt it pouring down the back of my legs and I could almost even smell it. I hadn't actually done it, but I could of sworn I felt it coming out of my ass and everything. I got so paranoid, I asked Rachel "did I.... do anything?... wrong?" she said "no... why?" I just told her not to worry about it and sat there wondering whether I had or not. For the whole walk, I felt it in my pants and it was bothering the hell out of me, and the next day, I figured that hadn't I thought I'd shat myself, I probably would have enjoyed the whole night.
We got halfway around the block, and the voices in the wind were getting too much. They weren't saying anything, there was just a wall of voices saying a thousand things at once as loud as they could over each other. I saw the wind coming towards me like rivers of rainbows (is the best way I can describe it). Beneath me, it felt like I was walking on whipped cream. My feet were sinking in and it felt impossible to pick them back up. In the end, we turned around and went back home, it was too hard and we had no idea what we were going to the shop for anyway. We walked back in and the it was just like walking back into a carnival, it was like the real fun and hallucinations had stayed behind and we had just walked outside into confusion and chaos. I remember going back in and realising how cold I was outside. I literally felt like I had walked into a games arcade (we hadn't locked the door, either). The colours and music were vibrant and beautiful, the walls were still melting, like they were when we left, just they way I wanted it to be. It was like slipping back into a warm bath, back into well organised, fun psychadelia. I sat back down in the armchair and let the hallucinations take over, I completely gave up on thinking and just let my brain relax. The colours were seeping in through my ears and invading my body like honey. I felt my inside melting away down into my feet, and the little me inside my useless body just sat there up in clear blue skies in my head and watched the show with glee and contempt. I just let my head roll around and observe all the weird goings on, my girlfriend smoking cones on the floor (she had come off her shrooms) was like looking at a rabbit digging a hole. I felt likemy body was a really tiny dwarf standing on a massive stage, and my spirit was sitting up in the back pulpits looking down at myself. Eventually the chaos became monotonous, and I was getting agitated at opening my eyes to see myself standing in front of me. I put myself to bed, just stripped down naked and jumped under the sheets. I closed my eyes, and lay there in the darkness watching 'it' (don't know what that is) swirl around and morph and dance in the air front of me. There were no colours any more, but it was still just as chaotic. The waves of contrasting blacks and greys were just doing the tango and I was watching.

Then I started to get very scared. I began to think myself into fear. I had visions of myself in a hospital bed, then in a psychiatric ward, with all my family standing around shaking their heads in disappointment. I convinced myself that I was stuck in this trip for the rest of my life, my body was just a shell and my brain was just left in a loop of colours and hallucinations and I was rendered crazy, so they'd left me for dead in a nuthouse.

Then the realisation came...

A voice in my head said "that's it... you've done it. You've fucked yourself up on drugs and you can't go to Melbourne. You were so close" I began sobbing. Then they were getting worse, I was dead. I was spiralling out of my body and up into the universe, looking down on myself lying there. I looked pathetic. The world was spiralling down down down further beneath me and I just sat there asking whatever or whoever the voice was... "why? why me? why now?".

He told me "Now you can understand what you have done to yourself. Death is not the end of life. Death is a period of reflection on your life. You were given your time on earth to make as many memories and good times as you could, so that when your life passes, you would have eternity to live and enjoy those memories. Death is not dying, death is life in itself. Death is a new life for you, but now you have finished it. You screwed yourself up on drugs and now you are stuck here. Death is a privelage you earn when you are done on earth. Physical existence is a miniscule fraction of what life really is. Look at the planet" at that moment I saw the earth. It was ugly, hideous. Huge and disgusting like a cyst in the solar system.


"You were put there to enjoy what little time you had, and you cut it short for yourself. I am afraid you are stuck here and there is nothing you can do but live in what little memories you made for yourself." The voice disappeared and I opened my eyes. My life flashed before my eyes, not once, but several times. I saw everything. My whole childhood. All my memories of sadness and happiness came flooding through me like electricity.


I got out of bed, naked. I wrapped myself in a woollen blanket and walked over to the full-length mirror. I looked at myself, and it was no longer a triangular reflection, it was horrible. I looked like a homeless dog. Shabby, pathetic. I was crying. I stood and looked at myself for a good solid hour, the kaleidascopes and colours were very faint, still there but almost transparent, and I knew they were telling me that they weren't the important part of the mushroom, they were the lesson to be learnt, the example.

In the end, when I woke up the next morning, I realised I was still alive, and I was glad. I wasn't ecstatic, I was just contempt. And I knew in myself that they had tought me a valuable life lesson. Call them a drug if you will, Dr. Global, but I learnt from them and they showed me a side of the psyche that I would have never understood otherwise. I believe they really do open your eyes to another world, whether it be real or not, it is real if you create it for yourself in your own mind, because the life lesson is learnt at the end.

Peace and love