Alone in the Dark

I am an eighteen year old male, and what follows is a description of the first time I used psilocybin mushrooms. The trip took place in December of 2005, just before Christmas. I hope that what follows can be an example of what not to do for those of you who might find yourselves in my place.
As most of my experiences with drugs do, this one began with myself and a few of my friends gathered in my house, getting ready to dose. What we had chosen for this particular journey was 1/8 of an ounce of "magic mushrooms" for each of us. I was with my brother and two good friends, who we'll call A and J. A had tripped many times before, on both LSD and mushrooms, and I trusted him to be my guide during my first experience with any hallucinogenic substance. We were counting on J to be our trip sitter, and although he had little experience with tripping, we assumed that he would be able to keep us out of any serious trouble we might get into.
We all ingested our mushrooms at around the same time, at approximately 8:00 p.m. Everyone sat around and watched TV in my basement while we waited for the experience to begin. At first I noticed very little effect at all; Wallace and Gromit became the most interesting thing in the world, and we were all soon engrossed in a conversation about "The Wrong Trousers". The first visuals I noticed were small line patterns on the wall around the TV, consisting of slowly crawling thin red lines. During this part of the trip we were all joking and laughing hard, even if nothing particularly funny had been said. At around 8:45 or 9:00 we decided to walk over to the local Blockbuster, which is about a half-hour away from our house.
I realize that up to this point, the trip has been rather mundane, and it isn't until we get out into the more "real" world outside my house that I let the mushrooms really get on top of me. As I walk with my group of friends down the street, I begin to notice that the colorful lights around my neighborhood are much brighter, and that the houses and trees seem taller and bent just slightly towards me. The more we walk, the more I begin to feel an overwhelming sense of paranoia and anxiety. I begin to see people standing in their doorways or on their porches, staring at me with what I assumed was malice.
At this point I decide that like with an overwhelming weed or alcohol experience, the obvious remedy for my paranoia and confusion is to lie down. I tell my friend J (at least in my state I thought I did, later I learned that I just walked off) that I'm feeling odd, and I'm going home to lie down. Feeling more afraid than anything, I put my head down and quickly walk home. I stumble downstairs and into my bed and the real trip begins.
Knowing next to nothing about how to stabilize a trip that is snowballing out of control, I lie in bed and become more and more concerned about the mushrooms I had eaten. From what I can remember, this was around 11:00. Soon I feel as if I've left my room completely, and I hallucinate that I'm in the car driving with some (different) friends. Slowly, the car ride becomes more menacing, I hear/see a combination of music and color which is accompanied by the constant inquiries of my friends. "What did you do?" "Holy shit, you really fucked up." "Oh my God, what's wrong?" Naturally, this didn't help my condition at all. Eventually, I convinced myself that I had killed my parents, and I had shot myself. The hallucination was so real, I could actually feel the blood flowing out of my mouth, and the teeth that had been knocked out by the bullet were missing.
At this point the trip became completely abstract. Sure that I was dead, I began to feel as if my consciousness was separately moving about a different world, a world full of colors and words that resounded throughout my being. This was an odd head space, filled with moments where I would have a "moment of clarity" and I can remember being on the floor, wedged under my bed, or even sprawled out on top of my cluttered dresser.
The overpowering trip came to a close when I removed my sweat drenched clothes (all of them) and proceeded to walk past my friends, and good-for-nothing trip sitter, to my parents bedroom. I knocked on the door, so sure that I had to do something important, and suddenly realized that I was naked and tripping my ass off. This moment of lucidity came far too late, and soon my parents were in full-on investigation mode; I can remember snippets of my nonsensical rants, and their inquisition on my friends.
As all experiences with drugs must, this one moved into an uncomfortable denouement where I was lectured by a doctor in the ER on the damage that had been done to my liver by the substances I had ingested that night and many nights before it. Despite my tendency to be long winded and wax poetic, I hope that all of you first timers out there can learn from my mistake. I cannot stress enough the importance of SET and SETTING. It has taken me many months of reading about other's tough experiences and a lot of introspection to integrate this extremely difficult trip. I am now ready to attempt again to reach that odd head space, and I hope my experience will be a world apart.

Peace and much love,
Foster