Fun and amazing first time! (long)

Well, here I am finally typing out a trip report for the Shroomery. When I ate my first shrooms yesterday, it capped off (pun intended) almost a year of research and flip-flopping on whether I actually wanted to do them or not. That's right, I'd been visiting the Shroomery for about 10 months (usually while stoned) seeking info and trip reports about these magic mushrooms. I am quite pleased to report that I'm so very glad I ended up shrooming after all: my trip went great!

Some background info: prior to doing these shrooms, I was only experienced with alcohol (some), weed (a LOT), some speed, nicotine, caffeine, etc. So suffice it to say that shrooms are definitely the strongest drug I've ever taken.

At 4pm my friend who we'll call "M" and I ate a little less than 2 grams of dried shrooms each. Since I'm so used to smoking weed, it seemed extremely anti-climatic when the nasty-tasting shrooms were finally all eaten and nothing was happening. I grabbed a Sprite out of my fridge and M and I just sat and talked about music for a while. We stayed away from discussing the shrooms we'd just eaten... I think we were both worried that we hadn't bought enough. Finally, after about 15 minutes, M turned to me and said "are you feeling anything yet?" I was about to answer with a disappointed "no", but just as she said those words, a tingling feeling began to manifest itself in the pit of my stomach. I felt kind of... well, good. Like I'd just had a couple beers. I told M that I felt a little funny, but not much different. She agreed that she wasn't feeling much, either.

Since there's a park within easy walking distance of my apartment (less than half a mile), I suggested we take a walk over to it. Perhaps the shrooms would kick in just as we got there, providing a great playground for two tripping souls.

As we walked down the street, I looked all around, hoping to see a bending tree or warping wall of some sort, like in the trip reports I'd read. Alas, nothing except that nifty little feeling in the pit of my stomach. I grew nervous that I wasn't going to trip at all... the words "body high" kept floating through my head... was that all I'd get to experience?

As we got a little closer to the park, I started walking in the middle of the street (it's a residential neighborhood). Suddenly, I got the weird feeling that the street was much wider than before... even the cars seemed slightly bigger. I felt like I'd shrunk, almost imperceptibly, to about 3/4ths of my original size. I started to describe this to M, who sadly reported that she felt nothing of the sort. I decided I was pretty much imagining the shrinking illusion, since my mind was so anxious for some form of hallucination to begin. I walked on, convinced I wasn't feeling much, either.

We reached the park a lot faster than I thought we would, and I was definitely not seriously tripping yet. It wasn't cool at all... it was just a park. Grass and trees, no more amazing than in my everyday life. Dejected, M and I began to stroll through the park kind of aimlessly. I asked M if she had any cigarettes on her. She didn't, but wanted to get a new pack. We decided to walk to a nearby 7-11 to pick up a pack. At this point, I was pretty convinced I wasn't going to trip at all. But that tingly feeling in the pit of my stomach seemed to be getting a little bit stronger. Or was that my imagination?

As we left the park, we began to cross another of those little residential streets, and that's when it happened. I was kinda watching my feet as I walked, and the newly paved street seemed to... warp, or swirl around. It was like... when you spin around and get really dizzy, ya know how the world starts to spin on its own? Well, imagine that effect, but it was ONLY on the ground. I wasn't dizzy, and the rest of my surroundings looked perfectly normal.

As soon as I saw this, I let out a "WHOA!" and a grin spread across my face. The time was approximately 4:45, and my trip was finally starting to actually take hold. As I was explaining to M what I'd just seen, I noticed she was staring at some of the multicolored leaves that had fallen in the gutter on the side of the street. She had a grin plastered across her face. I felt instantly relieved, and she assured me that she was starting to feel a lot different, too. The warm tingly feeling in my gut was getting even stronger now... it felt good, but to be honest, it also felt like I had to take a fat shit. Luckily, I'd read on the Shroomery that this was my imagination, a side effect of the shrooms. I ignored the feeling and we kept walking to 7-11.

As we walked, I started getting a little disappointed again. I wanted the ground to move some more! I looked all around, hoping to see something really cool happen, but nothing really did. Instead, the feeling in my stomach was starting to spread all throughout my body. I felt really light, and quite vital. A feeling of general well-being and well-restedness seemed to spread across me. As we walked up to the 7-11 door, the only new shroom-related feeling I could definitely notice was a sense of disorientation... as though, even though I'd been to this 7-11 before, and I definitely knew how to walk home and everything... it all looked new and sort of unfamiliar.

I went up to the counter and asked for a pack of Marlboro Reds (M's choice, they're definitely a bit much for me). Except when I spoke, it came out more like "I'll take a, uh, package--er, a, uh, pack of Mrrlbaro--er, Marlberr--er, Marlboro Reds, please. I was also smiling ear to ear for some reason. M was trying hard not to laugh. Now even the nice Indian man behind the counter began to laugh, which made me lose it. I don't think the customers behind me in line appreciated this very much. I didn't know what the hell was so funny... and then it dawned on me that I was trying to buy something while on shrooms, which is not an easy task by any means. Well, since I'd left my money clip wisely at home, I had to pay via ATM card. Folks, let me tell you... when I first slid my card through that machine at about 5:10 or so is where my trip really began to start. I could not figure out how the fuck to use this machine for the life of me. Finally, I managed to key in my PIN, and I sat patiently for the receipt to print. An eternity passed before the clerk motioned towards the machine. I'd stood there for about 30 seconds with only 3 digits of my PIN entered in the machine. At this point I knew it was vital I get the hell out of Dodge and back towards the park or my apartment, because the trip was definitely beginning to take hold. We took our stuff and began to walk back. As we walked back towards the park, my sense of disorientation was increasing to the point where it was the main effect of the shrooms thus far. I felt like I was walking on an alien landscape that was somehow familiar. Of course, I knew where I was and how to get back, but it was like I'd never seen the surroundings like THIS before. We stopped to rest and smoke a cig by a streetlight. I remarked to M that the light seemed really orange, and really bright... she agreed. The light seemed to bathe everything in an orange glow, and it was much brighter than normal. I knew the trip was really underway.

We finally made it back to the park, and we stopped to sit on a bench. The moon was out, but the sun was just setting. And, as though we'd planned it this way all along, we sat and watched the sun set while on shrooms. I don't know how long we sat there watching the colors shift around in the sky... and to be honest, I don't actually remember much of this part. The next thing I knew, the sun was set, it was much darker, and I had no idea how long we had been sitting there. I estimated it had been anywhere between 30 minutes to two hours. A quick glance at my cel phone clock indicated it had been about 7 minutes.

We stayed in the park a while longer, and I began to stare at the moon, which was framed between two large trees which were missing their leaves. I stared intently at the trees, which seemed to become blurry and soft, like a special effect. The spindly bare branches seemed to multiply, and there was a veritable spiderweb of tangled branches swirling in front of me. All of a sudden, clear as day, the face of the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland smiled out at me from the branches... the branches seemed to form the outline of his face and mad smile. I had to laugh at this, recognizing it as a figment of my imagination. I decided to try closing my eyes. With my eyes closed, I saw a mass of images swimming around, but the subject matter was rather dark. I saw a Medusa-like figure with wide eyes and an evil smile, and I saw bony hands clawing upward from the darkness. I realized that it was just my subconscious trying to scare myself, so I wasn't really afraid. I never felt that creeping feeling of "oh no, this is a bad trip coming on". I just told myself that I was tripping, and I treated the vision as though I was walking through a haunted house at Halloween. It was scary, but nothing to get all worked up about. I never panicked.

I opened my eyes and watched the moon for a while. The main thing I noticed was the refraction of light coming from it. It was as though I was looking at the moon with tears in my eyes, or through cracked glasses: no matter how I shifted my head or my eyes, there was a lens flare of sorts coming from the moon.

M, lost in her own world as well on the grass, got up and asked if we could head back to my apartment. I realized it was getting kind of cold, and I was just wearing my TOOL t-shirt, so I agreed.

On the walk back, we talked a bit about the things we'd seen in the park. I was convinced this was going to be about the peak of my trip (I would end up being wrong), but I was pretty satisfied at this point with what I'd experienced. For some reason, though, as soon as we got indoors, the peak hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm not positive, but I think this was about 90 or 100 minutes after first taking the shrooms. We went back into my room, where we just sat and rested for a moment. Before long, my roommate (who had no idea that we were tripping) came in and started having a conversation with us. My roommate's a pretty funny guy, and pretty soon it was like M and I had a case of the giggles. Almost everything my roomie said made us crack up in wild laughter. When I laughed, it wasn't the forced laughter of everyday life. I felt genuinely joyous, laughing from a place deep inside me that I haven't felt since I was a kid. The laughter seemed to be an extension of the tingly feeling I'd first felt. While we were talking, I put some Liquid Tension Experiment in my stereo, and we listened to the song "Acid Rain". Soon, I couldn't pay attention to the conversation, the music was so good. This was already one of my favorite songs, a song I've even heard stoned a million times... but this was different. The music seemed... deeper, or wider, somehow. John Petrucci's guitar sound had a warm quality to it, like the notes he was playing were liquid gold. It made me beyond happy to experience the music. I fell into a kind of euphoria that I've never really known before. My roommate suggested that we watch a movie, and I agreed, sadly leaving my music behind. On a side note, I plan on listening to much more music the next time I shroom... I didn't do NEARLY enough of it this time.

So, we settled into the living room in my apartment to watch the film "Unbreakable" by M. Night Shamalamadingdong or whatever his name is. If you've never seen it, it's a great movie, but it was un-freaking-believable on shrooms. To my amazement, I could follow the storyline perfectly, and I wasn't zoning out like when I watch movies high. It was as though I was living all the same emotions as the characters. I bet my face was pretty funny to see during the movie... one moment, I'd have an idiot sized grin spread across my face, on the brink of laughing with joy at this amazing piece of art and Sam Jackson's amazing acting, and the next moment I'd be tearing up at the emotional storyline.

The main thing I noticed during the movie was the distortion of color and image. It was as though there were no clean-cut edges to the picture, everything seemed to just fuzz and fade away at the edges. Light and motion were exaggerated, and instead of looking at specific people or things on the screen, I seemed to experience the whole scene as one giant image. This part is impossible to explain, I'm afraid.

Towards the middle of the movie, while I was still tripping pretty well, but definitely beginning to slide down from my peak a little, I realized I had to pee really bad. I got up and went in the bathroom, unzipped my fly, and took a relieving piss. I realized how absurd peeing was, and stood there laughing quietly while I finished. On my way out, I realized I had a chance to look in the mirror. I'd read conflicting things about looking in the mirror while on shrooms. Most people said to avoid it altogether, but I wasn't afraid... I hadn't really had a single totally negative experience thus far.

When I looked in the mirror, at first I just saw myself, but all the colors on my shirt, plus my skin tone, were brighter and more vivid. Then, as I stared longer, I watched my face transform slightly into the most handsome version of myself I've ever seen. I don't know how to describe this besides saying that I just morphed into an ultra-attractive version of myself. Just as I was marvelling at this, my face seemed to ripple and melt away into a much more unattractive version of myself. My skin turned a near-yellowish color, my eyes seemed sunken, I looked particularly unshaven, and my arms and hands seemed bony. Unaffected, I laughed at this too, and stood watching my image ripple around into different things for a while. I laughed and said to my mirror image "It's the shrooms, man!" Finally, I realized that M and my roommate would probably think I flushed myself if I didn't leave the bathroom soon, so I soon took my place back on the couch to finish the movie.

I spent the rest of my trip watching this movie, filled with many intense emotions, most notably euphoria. For a couple minutes at a time, I let my train of thought sidetrack me into thoughts about life and the universe, and they were all peaceful and joyous thoughts. I felt perfectly content, perfectly alive, and most grateful to be with friends. To be honest, it was the happiest I'd felt in a very long time.

As the movie ended, I was definitely almost done with my trip, and spent the last lingering portion watching TV and talking to my friends.

As the shrooms wore off, I felt pretty groggy, as though I'd woken from a 4 or 5 hour nap. The feeling was kind of similar to jet lag, and it wasn't particularly pleasant. M and I decided to take a few bong hits for the come-down of the last hour of our trip. The weed combined with the last remaining shroomage in my system put me into an EXTREMELY stoned state, pretty much knocking me out. Oddly enough, I didn't sleep very well that night. I drifted in and out of half-sleep until about 7am, at which point I was finally able to fall into a deeper sleep until about noon. The day after still had a bit of grogginess associated with it, as well.

So, that's my uber-long trip report, one that was many months in the making. If you're reading this report trying to decide whether to shroom or not, like I was, here's my recommendation: if you're a generally stable, happy-ish, mentally strong person, there is nothing to fear from our friend the mushroom. You'll probably learn many valuable and positive things, as I did, with quite a story to tell. Good luck and happy shrooming!