Festival season was well under way in the UK, and myself along with a large group had journeyed south to experience what it had to offer. It was my first festival along with a few others, not a relativity large one, but a weekend I / we can still look back with great affection as a truly memorable and fantastic weekend!
Prior to the experience, I had purchased 15g of Hollandia truffles from the internet, boasting to be a new "hyper-strong magic truffle." Indeed they were, with two previous encounters under my belt, one providing extreme clarity and insight, and the other proving to be difficult coupled with anxiety and short term mental strain. Unfortunately, that one seemed to act as a minor foreshadowing to my most recent endeavour, seemingly picking up straight where the other left off.
I intended to split the 15g vacuum sealed bag with a good friend I had known from school, but not before making him aware of possible difficulties I had run into without alarming him, as his experience was limited to cannabis only. He was eager and so we cut them up, and broke them down in hot water, and then splitting the water half and half before consuming it at around 15:00pm. (In hindsight, I'm aware the concentration may have differed between the two drinks, yet it seemed to have worked prior to this. I also decided to eat the majority or the remains of the truffles, (a very soggy 15g'ish) unlike my friend, however I am not sure weather or not this had any impact on the trip. I assume that it did though, and so do other people I have informed since).
15:30 – Sitting in my camping chair, the glaring sun beaming down upon all of us, I become aware of the psilocybin interacting with my body. The anticipation seemed to have somewhat gotten the better of me, I thought. A feeling soon persisted that I recognized immediately, and had come to dislike sometime after the experience of my second endeavour in the woods. It seems to resonates ‘bad vibes’ and mild panic inside of me, even when it comes to recounting it, because of its strange and ambiguous nature. I was playing these ideas in my mind, over and over, well aware that it would most likely worsen my internal mental situation, but I seemed incapable to occupy my mind on anything else.
16:00 – Now I recognized the value of set and setting, and how foolish I was to ignore its intrinsic truth by tripping at a festival with largely a bunch of strangers and distant acquaintances. I was taking in bad vibes from peoples persistent complaining about the sun’s intensity and the fact that I didn't know them all too well, then amplifying the feelings in my head, leaving me in a restless state, but not yet out of my personal governance. My friend seemed fine and I did not wish to alarm him. Because of the lack of stronger visuals, I put this down to a placebo, as my friend did not appear distant unlike me and just replied he was ‘chillin.’ His same reply annoyed me as I felt he didn't want to give anything away for the sake of being cool (or something), whilst I was slipping – not something I would usually be bothered about, yet I said nothing – for a long time. I thought people were becoming aware of my state and it plunged deeper, yet they have all said they hardly noticed since, to my amazement.
17:00 – By now a couple of hours had passed after I had consumed the truffles and the visuals were by now apparent and constant. I had only to look down at the grass from my chair to see it flowing as if underwater or the air had suddenly got thick and creamy. I love to sit and watch grass under the effects of psilocybin. It seems to glow and vibrate up through my being. This can often manifest in a positive, grounding way, or have the adverse affect of instilling anxiety and panic. I could imagine subtle breezes pushing and pulling the environment in every direction, immersed in a seemingly dry yet invisible fluid. The suns radiance seemed to wash everything in a golden tinge. I was able to calm myself to an extent, even though they were slightly alarming and had a minor terror feeling waiting behind them, however minor social interactions still sent me spiralling inside as it forced me to operate on someone else's level. Something I felt quite unable to do, as I couldn't begin to comprehend how to convey how I was feeling if their questions were of that nature.
18:15 - People were talking about heading down the hill to the stages, something I recognized as unwise for myself to do, but before making this decision I wandered around frantically, going to sit in my tent a few times, then to walk to the portaloo’s in an unsuccessful attempt to collect myself, all the time feeling generally spaced mentally. I told a friend but only received looks hinted with absurdity and only minor concern. I felt myself seriously slipping but managed to quell it, comparable to the way one quells a fart, with it moving uncomfortably back into the body, this took place within my mind, as it had on my previous truffle encounter. I chose this option over letting it spill out everywhere, which I felt on the verge of doing.
18:30 – An ambulance skids and pulls up beside our tents to collect a guy in a limp fashion as they sat him inside the ambulance. Highly fearful they would notice me, I therefore considered telling them everything that was going on, or to sit myself in the back of the ambulance. I thought I’d lost it and so did my friend who’d also taken the truffles seemingly to no avail, but he reassured me and sat under a large cargo container with stilts on, the only respite from the sun. He began to notice visuals in empty bottles as I began to return to normality in terms of mental space, but was still in a heightened state of anxiety and panic for a few hours, and the trip seemed to had been ‘cut off’ as the visuals became less apparent, much to my relief.
For me, psilocybin truly places one in the moment, therefore not knowing what to do with one’s self because of restlessness and anxiety gives birth to a fearful and confused state. I also think that the cannabis intoxication may somewhat heighten this perception of anxiety, as I was under its influence for the majority of the weekend, yet this undoubtedly remains down the the user. I remembered that I had managed to come by ½ a gram of NN-DMT the previous day, and the promise of MDMA (which I have come to adore) for the first time the next day lifted my spirits, and that it did. A memorable weekend, and one not without it’s lessons and memories.
Edited by AllFlows (09/30/13 05:59 PM)
|