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Miles Stewart
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Second time shrooming - difficult experience
#23423932 - 07/08/16 03:08 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Hi all,
My first post here although I have enjoyed reading a lot of posts on this forum.
The first time I did shrooms was about two months ago with my wife. We planned the whole day (she had never done ANY drugs before) and took a trip down to the beach (Camber Sands in England). It was really a magical experience for both of us. I had some anxiety coming up but after that it was wonderful. My wife loved it and I think it brought us closer together.
Today was my second time shrooming. It was much more spur of the moment and I took 1.3g of psilocybin cubensis (I weigh 82kg - about 180lb I think?). So it was a low dose but I'm not that comfortable doing more - the firs time I did it I took 1.5g and that was plenty, I really don't think I could handle bigger doses. I decided to do it indoors after reading posts on here about it, some people saying that indoors can actually be good.
It was a difficult experience this time. The first time I took shrooms, after the initial come up anxiety, it was just a beautiful experience. The usual feeling of commune with nature and wonder at the world that many report. But this time it was much more introspective and at some point during the trip I had to succumb to feelings of moroseness and a realisation that while many things in my life are great, there's an underlying discontent and restlessness that leads me to abuse substances. I'm not addicted to any drug in particular but feel the need to take SOMETHING, probably once every couple of weeks or so. It started bothering me a lot that I feel the need to do this and I don't know how to fix it. I eat healthy, exercise every day, etc and that's all great but I guess there is something missing that leads me to want to take drugs (over the past few years I've dabbled in opiates, MDMA a couple of times had a bit of an issue with coke which actually just makes me feel anxious and horrible and I take Xanax fairly regularly not because I like it but because often I just can't sleep for more than 3 hour a night).
It's not relevant I guess but I'm a finance lawyer and I qualified as a doctor before changing professions. I'm financially comfortable, have a great wife and, on paper, a pretty damn good life without all that much work stress since I decided to stop working in big law firms with attendant pressure and long hours.
I guess I'm just mentioning the above to give some context - I hope it doesn't sound anything like bragging, it's really not meant that way.
Anyway I know this should be a trip report not just me going on about my first world problems.
So after being indoors about an hour it seemed silly to stay in and I headed out, walked a few kilometres down to Canary Wharf by the river in Lonodn which I quite like and is open, exposed, breezy and being by water normally makes me feel good.
But I never quite settled, like there was this underlying feeling of discontent throughout. There were brief periods of anxiety but I got over these. I couldn't shake the moroseness though, which is basically trying to come to terms with my place in the world and how to build a life where using drugs or doing self destructive things like chain smoking cigarettes (once every few weeks - I don't smoke normally) doesn't factor.
I had these questions before the trip but I don't have any further answers now. So I guess I feel a bit lost and this was exacerbated by the shrooms.
I definitely don't expect the shrooms to give me the answers to these questions and maybe it's good that it's brought them to the forefront. All the things we do to make a life and lose ourselves in it - relationships, work, hobbies, yoga, meditation, all of it kind of seem like distractions. The one thing that shines through as important to me and is a beacon of hope is creativity (I've written a couple of novels) and how that is maybe the only antidote to aging, mortality and the existential angst that permeates, always.
So now the trip is over and I'm left feeling kind of hollow, a bit sad, but also a bit hopeful. My wife is away and I miss her and maybe the trip has made me realise how important and worthwhile it is to make her happy (she's a sweetheart, really) and maybe not focus so much on myself.
Sorry, this was probably a really dull trip report and really focused on my own problems than a colorful experience of my time with shrooms.
I should say I have absolutely no bad feelings towards shrooms after this. I guess I can appreciate that this probably IS the point of shrooms. They're not like MDMA where you just feel wonderful or opiates with their blissful warmth and feeling that everything is just right.
I'm reading Norwegian Wood by Murakami at the moment and I think the shroom trip felt very much in keeping with the tone of that book and maybe the overall way the protagonist looks at things. Maybe the book even influenced the trip.
Sorry guys, as I say a rambling and not very entertaining report but it helped me a bit writing this down, so thank you.
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LuzaW
Um, yeah


Registered: 11/10/15
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23424047 - 07/08/16 03:45 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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stop apologizing - your post is fine. add that bad habit to the list of things to work on. 
the trip helped you realize some things about yourself, things you'd like to change. it's good to talk about it.
how's your spiritual life? do you have a faith tradition?
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Miles Stewart
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: LuzaW]
#23424218 - 07/08/16 05:05 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks so much for the reply. Apologizing is in my nature unfortunately.
I need some sort of spiritual life I guess. I definitely feel something is missing and the shroom experience today just magnified that feeling.
I just don't know how to fill the 'gap' that is there. The easy fix is oblivion I guess. One of the massive appeals of opiates (and as I say I've never been physically dependent, just taken oxy occasionally). That warmth and bliss is so enticing. But then it wears off and where does it leave you? Back where you started. The only way to get it back is take more and it's easy to see where that leads (probably ultimately with a physical dependence on heroin and a needle in your arm and a life in ruins).
I'm sort of lying here just lost, not sure where I go from here. I look around and people laugh, enjoy things, live in the moment, etc and it all just seems alien and inaccessible to me. The normal day to day stuff that people enjoy leaves me pretty cold. That said I'm incredibly moved by a lot of things but there always has to be an intensity to them (incredibly music, a film that sucks you in, a conversation that occurs once in a blue moon). I have hard accepting the day to day mundanity of life and I feel like it leaves me nowhere really.
As I say I'm not blaming this on the shrooms, at all. They just intensified feelings that have been there for a long time and now I'm lying in bed, unable to sleep just feeling incredibly uncertain about the future.
Really helps to post on here but, without apologising again, I know I"m straying into self help territory rather than keeping things relevant and talking about shrooms themselves!
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Bomb Diggity
intrepid traveler



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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23424585 - 07/08/16 07:35 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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It's wonderful to see how you've realized so much with your experience. I wouldn't say that you're straying too far from the very nature of the mushrooms. To me at least, they are medicine, that courses through our systems to shine light on important stuff, they are teachers of things both personal and external. You're right on track brother..
Might I suggest you pick up an instrument? Or a pen? Wiggle your butt to some good music? Knit a sweater? Create! In whatever way you feel called to.. To me being creative seems like one of the most important things we can do as humans.. Let that creativity flow
-------------------- Disclaimer: All posts created by the user "Bomb Diggity" are entirely fictitious and are created solely for entertainment purposes to cope with his severe social anxiety.
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Miles Stewart
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Bomb Diggity]
#23425736 - 07/09/16 06:26 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thank you Bomb, I really appreciate that reply. It's the day after the trip and I'm back to 'normal'. But I feel a bit more motivation to create, as you said. I think I mentioned I've written a couple of books (not published except I stuck one of them on the Kindle store and it's getting read a fair bit - nothing earth shattering) and am working on another. I'd kind of stopped writing as I'd lost motivation but I feel it more now. So maybe something good did come out of the trip.
I was surprised how introspective and 'troubling' the whole experience was compared to the first trip was just like this beautiful commune with nature and a feeling that the world was basically working as it should.
This time there was a total lack of that sense of harmony, instead a mild gloom and feeling that things need to change. But maybe, as you say, that's really one of the key points of shrooms.
I'll probably take them again but not for a few months and not until I feel that I've worked some of the stuff out that I need to. It will be then interesting to see if the experience is different. That first time I took shrooms I was definitely in a more contented place in life. What an interesting substance these things are.
Do you think taking a higher dose would be terrifying for me, given that I found some of the bodily sensations uncomfortable at times on 1.5g/1.3g (first time/second time).
Thanks so much for reading!
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LuzaW
Um, yeah


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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23425796 - 07/09/16 07:20 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Miles, maybe find a group or club who share some of your interests and meet up with them. get involved, this will help with a sense of purpose.
For me, when I felt a similar longing, I turned to God & Jesus and it works for me. May not be the direction you're heading in and I get that, but I'm just relating my own experience.
Regarding a higher dose, that depends. Going to a 3 or 3.5 and up dose can be pretty overwhelming (with no tolerance). If you have the capacity to let go and give in to the experience, it will go easier for you. Working layers, layers where you can work on thoughts and emotions you are struggling with, are probably in the 1.5 - 2.0g range.
Just my $0.02, not everyone will agree and YMMV.
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Miles Stewart
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: LuzaW]
#23426167 - 07/09/16 10:37 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks Luza. I should do that, I've become pretty withdrawn from society recently and that probably doesn't help. My wife is religious but hasn't happened for me yet. I won't rule it out thought and good for you for finding direction.
Maybe 3 or 3.5g would be too much for me. When I was younger I could have handled it but now I'm much older and a lot of that youthful resilience and 'immortality' has gone.
Feeling really tired today but I guess that's not unexpected.
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Bomb Diggity
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23426198 - 07/09/16 10:53 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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I think you have all the answers you need Miles, now you just need to listen to your heart's desires, and take the steps to fulfilling those desires.
As for the dosage, maybe try 2 grams. Mushrooms seem to be random with how they want to hit you. I've eaten 4 tiny stems which was nowhere near even .5 probably. And was floored with introspection and a mushroom version of my voice telling me how exactly I need to get my shit together. I've also felt compelled to eat 3.5 and didn't even finish my bag cause the same mushroom voice as I was eating them told me to stop,that I had more than enough. Then proceeded to completely lose my mind, experiencing my own death, and birth,and rebirth, the existences beyond life. I so was not ready for that haha.
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/23349873 (if you're curious about that trip)
But yeah man,follow the synchronicities and listen to that heart melon thumping truth and wisdom. You'll be more than fine
-------------------- Disclaimer: All posts created by the user "Bomb Diggity" are entirely fictitious and are created solely for entertainment purposes to cope with his severe social anxiety.
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Miles Stewart
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Bomb Diggity]
#23426279 - 07/09/16 11:20 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Wow you people are really kind on this board!
Bomb I clicked on the link to your report but got an error message. It may be something I'm doing but could I trouble you to check it? I really would like to read it.
Shrooms are an incredible drugs. I used to take acid when I was around 17 (I overdid it and paid the price - totally my fault for abusing the stuff - which is why I didn't touch psychedelics for a long, long time afterwards). But the acid made me feel good every time, I never really had a difficult emotional experience on it.
But that shroom trip yesterday was different. I don't know if you guys would call it a 'bad trip' or not. I definitely didn't see anything horrifying or monstrous (I guess at such a low dose that would be unlikely as visual effects were fairly mild) but I was surprised by the emotional component of it and the moroseness that pervaded the experience at times, very different to depression though, more like a dissatisfaction and feeling that I need to change things.
Funnily today, after a few weeks of writer's block I've started writing again. I wonder if it's a coincidence that it's the day after taking shrooms or whether they provided some sort of impetus to get going again.
I will also add that the next time I do shrooms it's going to be something more akin to the first setting (which was on a beach), rather than taking them in my apartment in central London, then going for a walk outside. It just never felt right which I guess is why you guys say that setting is so important but I know that differs person to person.
My last question is - is it quite normal for somebody to have a kind of 'negative' experience like I did yesterday (nothing horrific but just feeling disgruntled and out of sorts) and then go on in future to have a much more positive experience? I do understand that a lot of you view the negative experiences as being as valuable as the positive ones and I can totally understand that. At the same time I suppose I'd like to hope that the next time I take shrooms it will be somewhat enjoyable as well as just valuable. But maybe that's looking at it the wrong way.
Thank again so much!
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Bomb Diggity
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23426479 - 07/09/16 12:35 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/23349873 this should work
It doesn't seem like you really had a "bad trip" it was a needed trip. Congrats in breaking your writers block
Although I don't have much experience with mushrooms, only 3 big trips and a couple of micro doses. All the big trips have been out in nature, which seems to always be really appropriate. The microdoses we're indoors, and we're nice 2 out of 3 times. The not nice time was cause of a certain person there bringing me down.
Despite my little experience I do think that a positive perspective is always possible, you just have to surrender to it. Setting is important, but set is just as important, your mindset. How comfortable you are in the moment. Which is to varying degrees, always, usually in your control.
Speak with your mushrooms,set some intentions, ask for positivity. Don't expect it, but humbly ask for it. But be okay with the possibility that it will be another difficult experience. Be ready to go with the flow, whatever it may be, with a smile on your face.
-------------------- Disclaimer: All posts created by the user "Bomb Diggity" are entirely fictitious and are created solely for entertainment purposes to cope with his severe social anxiety.
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Miles Stewart
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Bomb Diggity]
#23427056 - 07/09/16 04:13 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Hey Bomb.
GREAT report but I have to say that it sounds absolutely terrifying and I definitely will be sticking to my 1.5g doses after reading that. Don't get me wrong, your experience is incredible but it's just way too much for me to handle.
Thanks for all your advice!
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Bomb Diggity
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23427262 - 07/09/16 05:42 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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It was absolutely terrifying. Although, some moments we're absolute bliss believe it or not. I wouldn't let my report discourage you from trying bigger doses, maybe don't just to 3.5, but maybe 2 grams next time, or the next next time after another 1.5. Test the waters, listen to yourself, and the mushrooms if you can hear them like I do. Everyone is different, I've realized that I'm very sensitive to them. I'm glad my advice has been useful, I don't really feel like the most qualified person to be giving advice on matters such as this, you're welcome... I wish you the best in your journies brother
-------------------- Disclaimer: All posts created by the user "Bomb Diggity" are entirely fictitious and are created solely for entertainment purposes to cope with his severe social anxiety.
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Mike4aco
Soy el pinche guey



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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Bomb Diggity]
#23428444 - 07/10/16 05:48 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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if you want to try a safe way to increase the dosage, at what you are used to, i would get a bunch of mushrooms your normal dose is around 1.5g? Enough for a few doses, powder and mix them thoroughly, ask them how much you should take. Increase ypur dosage by maybe .2 grams or so until you feel tbe mushroom voice speaking strongly inside of you. It will take a few teials and error, but it will replace that stuck feeling and maybe allow you to communicate through thw mushrooms. Unfortunately i have taken 1.5 mg of lsd last nighg and it is difficult for me to read right now. I found your report fascinating though from what i could read, and i have you bookmarked for my break later so i can read more in depth. I hope you will get something very positive from the mushroom voice
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Aldebaran
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23428450 - 07/10/16 05:55 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Hi, I found your trip report very interesting, in terms of how shrooms fit into your life.
Quote:
But this time it was much more introspective and at some point during the trip I had to succumb to feelings of moroseness and a realisation that while many things in my life are great, there's an underlying discontent and restlessness that leads me to abuse substances.
I think with shrooms this can be quite typical during an introspective solo trip. The initial phase of the trip, in my experience, is usually a little bit uncomfortable both physically and mentally. In your first trip, outdoors with more stimulation, you probably felt this as the transient come-up anxiety, which was then replaced with more positive feelings as you interacted with people and nature.
During a solo indoors trip you have more time for the trip to subtly alter your usual patterns of thinking, and you can find yourself thinking "why am I doing this?" "what is the point of my life?" and so on.
When the trip gets going a bit more, the intensity increases slightly, and once you feel comfortable with it, there is a real "flow" to the experience and a euphoria that comes with it. In this sense it's an unusual drug - you get the negative / weird feelings at the beginning and the euphoria and positivity come on a little bit later.
It's as if the beginning of the trip is about breaking down your usual thought patterns, weakening your experience of yourself as a distinct, whole personality with a meaningful life centered on your job, relationships and so on. The extreme end to this process is where you take a dose big enough to completely dissociate you from everything including yourself and reality, your whole conscious experience of yourself as a person just disintegrates to be replaced by an incredible feeling of something mystical / spiritual.
The other undercurrent during the trip is that euphoric, positive feeling. Again, if you go to extremes on the dosage this can snowball into an incredibly powerful mania, with your thoughts spiralling out of control and delusions piling in.
Both these things can interact to make for a very "interesting" trip. For a bit more of a science-based take on this see my post in this thread.
Obviously there's no need to go to extremes, but at the "low dose" end I find that you get the discomfort and weirdness without it being balanced by any real euphoria or positivity coming through, you just feel edgy because you are on a threshold dose where you can't relax into the trip.
I'm not suggesting taking massive amounts; leave that to the young fearless psychonaut types, but you might want to try increasing your dose a little bit so that you are tripping at a level which feels a little bit challenging, at least to start with, then is followed by more of a "payoff" of an enjoyable, euphoric trip. I think this is actually quite a positive type of experience - to work your way through a few anxieties, doubts and a little bit of body load, then at some point to find yourself smiling and thinking "wow, I'm really starting to enjoy this!"
So... there is the blissful warmth and the feeling that everything is OK somewhere in there, you just have to be prepared for a little bit of a challenge, a little bit of effort, to get there.
A comment from one of my trip reports:
Quote:
This feeling of judgement I get quite often with shrooms; usually it's something closer to self-judgement - a sense of unworthiness and self-doubt. There's a phrase in the trip journal of "dredging your life from the bottom of a canal" and sometimes a trip really knocks me down psychologically, as if I have to surrender my ego to get anywhere with it. Again, I find it's best to "go with it", accept my faults and lose my bravado.
Sometimes you can't deal with the trip, so just let the trip deal with you! If things are going a bit south, it does actually help to learn that even if you are overwhelmed by panic and anxiety, it can sometimes be a shortcut to the positive things you are seeking from the trip. On a high dose you can be sucked into a black hole of negative emotions, only to find that when you give up hope and stop fighting your imminent doom, you are suddenly propelled into a blissful experience completely unexpectedly. The negative elements within the trip are often the same things as the positive - there is a kind of wild energy in there which can seem hostile and sinister but if you can relax your mind and let the trip flow through it, it feels wonderful. And as long as you don't go too mad with the dosage, you can face these kind of challenges at much more comfortable levels of intensity and still get a worthwhile trip.
Quote:
That said I'm incredibly moved by a lot of things but there always has to be an intensity to them
Well, shrooms = intensity pretty much, they are intense as you want to make them.
Quote:
The normal day to day stuff that people enjoy leaves me pretty cold........I need some sort of spiritual life I guess. I definitely feel something is missing and the shroom experience today just magnified that feeling. I just don't know how to fill the 'gap' that is there.
Yeah, I think what you need is shrooms, in slightly bigger doses. Don't forget that 3.5g is often mentioned as a "full psychedelic dose" (obviously it depends on potency) so you have a fair bit of headroom on the dosage without blowing your mind! I would ditch the other drugs and trip occasionally with an open mind, knowing that it won't be 100% kittens and rainbows but it will be worthwhile. In terms of finding some sort of spirituality or a sense of meaning in a mushroom trip, it really is astonishing what you can find in a trip, it's just a limitless abyss of wonder....
Ultimately when you are sober again you might still end up contemplating the pointlessness of everything, tripping isn't going to fix the world, but I think it really does put a sense of wonder back into life. Once you've been absolutely mind-blown by impossible things, it can make real life feel better - you can connect with and enjoy the small things in life because you are not constantly seeking a level of meaning above it - you already have access to it, you have more wonder and mystery than you can deal with. Sometimes in a strong trip you start to long for the solidity and normality of everyday things, and coming back to reality feels like getting back something you had lost and never really appreciated.
And unlike most people, you won't wake up the next day thinking "well that was fantastic but it doesn't pay the rent" - you are in a good position to be able to enjoy life to the full without being ground down by low-wage drudgery e.t.c
Quote:
The one thing that shines through as important to me and is a beacon of hope is creativity (I've written a couple of novels)
Try writing under the influence of shrooms, like a journal, whatever comes into your mind....it can be very interesting. And also if you are doing another solo trip put on a decent music playlist that you've planned beforehand. That can really guide the trip and prevent it drifting off into moroseness e.t.c, because there is always a new song to bring your attention back to something more positive.
Well, it's a long response, but I wanted to write something because I think you are closer than you think to the kind of meaning in life that you are seeking.
-------------------- I wrote that, but I meant something else
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Miles Stewart
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Aldebaran]
#23429543 - 07/10/16 02:46 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Mike and Aldebaran, thanks so much for your replies.
Mike - many thanks for the suggestion. I can give that a try next time.
Aldebaran - that was fascinating and has given me a lot to think about. I think I'll probably wait a few months and then give the higher dose a go. I did feel like the dose I took left me teetering on the edge a bit, such that I was never really able to let go and enjoy the trip. It could well be that a higher dose would have got me over that 'hump'. Having said that the first trip (where I took 1.5g as opposed to 1.3g this time - so not much of a difference) was very positive. Maybe it's because I was with my wife, we'd planned the whole thing and driven down to the beach. This time I took the shrooms spur of the moment because a friend had sort of cancelled on me and I was bored. Really silly reason to do shrooms so the more negative experience feels almost deserved.
One thing I didn't mention in my trip was that I ended up getting the London tube back home, lol. That part was almost unbearable. The London Underground is depressing at the best of times but on shrooms it was just...... well it's about as far away from nature as you can get! I don't recommend it.
The depression has carried over and I'm just starting to get over it a couple of days later (a long run today helped). I don't blame the shrooms at all, I'm somebody with a history of depression and have probably screwed up my neurochemistry with LSD abuse in my teens (when I was the young, fearless psychonaut you speak of Aldebaran), then an abstinence of about 17 years of any illicit drugs because I was simply scared after a bad LSD experience, then in the last 6 years problems with stimulants that began when I was prescribed a mild stimulant for depression that escalated into me wanting to dry stronger alternatives.
Aldebaran - I want to thank you again for the effort you put into your post. I'm going to wait probably at least a couple of months, get to a place where things are happy and stable and I feel like I've put my problems of seeking out substances for the sake of it (I've never been addicted to one drug but the shroom trip helped me, ironically, realise that I'm probably addicted to taking SOMETHING regularly) and then do what you suggest. I think making a playlist is a great idea and is what I did the first time I took shrooms. Everything was planned out and I had freed up time so I didn't have to worry about responsibilities and it all helped. This time was, as I say, spur of the moment and I was due to play football the next day. Even that minor commitment played on my mind and didn't allow me to fully relax (I didn't make the game in the end as I was pretty exhausted).
In short I think I didn't respect shrooms this time (unlike the first time) and I maybe paid for it, not terribly, but badly enough. I'm going to learn from my mistakes and do things right next time.
Thanks again.
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LuzaW
Um, yeah


Registered: 11/10/15
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23429858 - 07/10/16 05:10 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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sounds like you are working things out nicely. i like your thinking about how you're planning the next trip, the do's and don'ts you're working through, your mental/emotional prep for it, and so forth. if you do all of that, you will have done what you can at your end to have a good experience. have you thought about what the dosage might be?
anyway, good luck. put these months before the next trip to good use by working on those things that you have identified that you'd like to change about yourself. progress along these lines will make for additional good input to your mental state for the trip, further increasing your chances for a good experience imo
please come back and tell us how it goes. i'm sure i'm not the only one here who's interested to hear how you're doing.
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pineninja
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: LuzaW]
#23429887 - 07/10/16 05:23 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Just because a problem has been thrust in front of you doesn't mean it wasn't always there, sometimes the most important things in life are the easiest to miss and an awareness of these things is a gift that can't be taken back. Nice report....you are not alone.
-------------------- Just a fool on the hill.
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Aldebaran
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Miles Stewart]
#23431292 - 07/11/16 05:46 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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I will also add that the next time I do shrooms it's going to be something more akin to the first setting (which was on a beach), rather than taking them in my apartment in central London
I should probably have mentioned that I was talking about increasing the dose mainly in relation to your second, solo, indoors trip: obviously if you find a comfortable dose for a good outdoors trip there's no particular reason you have to change it. The ideal dose is probably going to be different in these different settings. I do like the solo indoors trips though, you can go further into the trip and further into yourself.
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I don't blame the shrooms at all, I'm somebody with a history of depression and have probably screwed up my neurochemistry with LSD abuse in my teens (when I was the young, fearless psychonaut you speak of Aldebaran), then an abstinence of about 17 years of any illicit drugs because I was simply scared after a bad LSD experience
This will be something that is influencing your mindset when you are just sat there on your own, engrossed in your own thoughts, feeling the trip settle around you. Realistically I think in a solo trip (on a dose sufficient to get a few more of the psychedelic effects) you might well feel that you are drifting into an uncomfortable mental landscape at the beginning of the trip, then it settles down and you get a sense of peace, joy and contentment, a bit of euphoria. I also suspect there is a genuine anti-depressant effect from this type of trip (I seem to remember some studies done on this) where the trip has an uplifting effect in the days, maybe weeks, afterwards (unlike stimulants e.t.c where you might feel burned out and shitty).
And even if a trip doesn't go too well, you can learn something, even if its just modifying the dose, changing the setting, changing your mindset for the next trip. And it's quite unusual for a proper trip to stay negative all the way through; more often you feel anxious for part of it and then you are able to get used to the intensity, calm down and enjoy it. The drug itself will help you to cope with the trip, it's just there can sometimes be a bit of lag between the weirdness that is making you feel anxious, and the uplifting sense of wellbeing that comes in to make the whole trip feel like something special, exciting and enjoyable. But you do need to take a dose big enough to get the psychedelic effects; a fair amount of a low dose is swallowed up just taking you up to the baseline where you can notice threshold effects - small increases to this dose beyond this level will have more of an impact.
Maybe after 17 years you'll start to remember not just the negative LSD experience, but why you enjoyed psychedelics in the first place!
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I'm going to wait probably at least a couple of months, get to a place where things are happy and stable
Yes, it's a good idea to space trips out a bit anyway, especially if they give you a lot to think about. I hope you can come back on here and let us know how your next trip goes!
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My last question is - is it quite normal for somebody to have a kind of 'negative' experience like I did yesterday (nothing horrific but just feeling disgruntled and out of sorts) and then go on in future to have a much more positive experience?
I would say yes, definitely, every experience is teaching you more about what the drug does, you learn gradually how to make the experience better, and how to cope with the negative aspects.
-------------------- I wrote that, but I meant something else
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Mike4aco
Soy el pinche guey



Registered: 11/28/15
Posts: 3,811
Loc: This third dimension
Last seen: 1 day, 10 hours
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Aldebaran]
#23431457 - 07/11/16 07:46 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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I have had some negative experiences, but 0nce i jump back on the horse, its like why did i feel that way? Theres no reason to! Everytime i am on acid, i feel like im being wrapped in a warm blanket of love and slowly disintegrating into it and becoming one with the blanket. Sometimes it kind of freaks me out a bit on how familiar it get, strong feelings of déjà vu, but then it calms down and had a bigger purpose. After some short time, the experience rearranges itself in my mind, and becomes nothing but positive
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Miles Stewart
Stranger
Registered: 07/08/16
Posts: 9
Last seen: 6 years, 29 days
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Re: Second time shrooming - difficult experience [Re: Mike4aco]
#23431553 - 07/11/16 08:43 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Just posting to thank you all for the replies since my last post. It's great to post on a forum like this where people are so insightful, nice and helpful. I thought I'd get a decent amount of criticism when posting, for some reason.
I'm a very different person to when I was 17 and using LSD. I was absolutely fearless at that point and just wanted the most intense experience possible. Then one fateful night I smoked marijuana to come down from an LSD trip and all hell broke loose. I know many people do this and report nothing but good things and I think I had even smoked before to come down and been fine but this time things went horribly wrong. Looking back I guess I had a severe panic attack but at the time I genuinely thought I was going to die. My heart rate was very fast and I ended up telling my parents what was happening and getting taken by ambulance to the emergency room. The next day I was fine again. I attributed the terrible reaction to the combination of LSD and marijuana. Two weeks later I took acid again and the SAME thing happened again but it wasn't as intense. Unfortunately the next day I was a different person, very anxious, fearful and prone to anxiety attacks. It's the most significant event of my life and really changed me as a person.
I was so scared of drugs after that that I refused morphine in hospital after having major abdo surgery. I also refused sleeping tablets while in hospital even though I couldn't sleep at all. My fear was that the LSD experience had somehow sensitized me to drugs to the extent that potentially any psychoactive drug might cause the same, horrific experience, to happen again. There was no knowledge or logic in this 'belief', it was just an instinctive reaction to the intense fear I had experienced.
As I said in an earlier post that all changed when I experienced an extremely severe bout of depression after moving to Japan to work that didn't respond to SSRIs or other classes of anti depressant. My doc prescribed a mildish stimulant which helped. I was deathly afraid to take it but I did, nothing bad happened and, lo, my fascination with drugs was reborn again!
However I'll never be that 17 year old (pre the bad experience) again. Back then I could take a couple of tabs of acid, stay up all night, not sleep then feel basically ok the next day and do stuff as normal. Now, 20 years later, it takes me a week to recover from drugs like MDMA or Dexedrine (prescribed - the Dex, not the MDMA, lol).
I don't know why I'm writing all this. I guess because I've been so impressed with the responses to my post and because it's cathartic writing this out. That LSD experience was unquestionably the most important thing to happen to me. However, when I look back I don't blame the LSD. I abused it. I was taking the stuff weekly which isn't good at all for a 17 year old. Moreover even though it made me a much more fearful person, that bad experience also meant I didn't touch drugs, or even alcohol really, for about 17 years. Had I stayed so fearless and immortal who knows what path I would have gone down? To an extent I've resumed that path of destruction in recent years but at least I'm older, better able to cope and have already got all the academic qualifications I need and established myself in a career.
So, back to the shrooms. That first trip was just wonderful and the second was troubling. I wonder what the third will be like? I will definitely come back here and report. I did have about two days of depression after taking the shrooms and felt very drained. But I'm back to normal now (running has really helped) and I don't have any adverse effects. Again I don't want to blame shrooms for the depression - as I've intimated, I'm not a resilient person these days and stimulants affect me quite badly. I know shrooms aren't really stims as such but if I had to put all drugs into two classes - stims or depressants - I would categorise them as stims.
I'm going to keep reading the fascinating posts on here and then try out the shrooms again in 2-3 months.
Aldebaran - thanks for clarifying about the dose. I do feel like part of the problem my last time shrooming was that I'd taken just enough to really feel the effects but not enough to fully relax into the experience. I felt unsettled throughout, whereas that wonderful first time I got come up anxiety but then it melted away into sustained beauty.
Mike - really glad to hear that you get back to having positive experiences. It gives me hope!
Pineninja - very true and I'm the first to acknowledge that shrooms didn't create any issues for me, they just brought some to the forefront but it's stuff that's been there for years and years anyway.
Luza - many thanks for the message and the interest. It's an interesting time in life where there is so much potential for happiness but also the very real possibility of things falling apart. I guess I'm just seeking focus and commitment. If shrooms can help with that then great.
I'll check back in and definitely update after my third time shrooming!
I want to ask one final question - what is the risk of taking shrooms? Beyond having a bad experience what is the worst that can happen? It's pretty much impossible to kill yourself on them (I mean directly, as opposed to jumping off a bridge thinking you can fly or something) isn't it? Unlike N-Bome which I understand can be much more dangerous.
I'm paradoxically much less afraid of long term anxiety/depression because I've had vast experience of dealing with those things anyway that they don't hold that much fear for me anymore.
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