Hey guys,
First of all allow me to introduce myself. I'm Jake, a long-time lurker of shroomery and part-time psychonaut. Apologies for this being my first post on the board but I feel that it will be the best way to help me resolve what's going on. (will include TL;DR at the end). I know I have some prejudices, but I am posting this not to offend anyone but to help myself gain an understanding and get some advice as to what my next move should be.
So, to give this story a bit of context I need to introduce an Australian subculture of psychedelic use known as "bush doofs" or simply doofs, aptly named for the sound of the music they usually play. The average doof consists of anywhere between 100 and 10,000 people congregated usually remotely in the bush on a private property to give the party some distance from police attention.
Anyway, in July this year I attended my first doof, known as Psyland, where there were probably about 2000 people. For the first night I was having a great time, getting into the weirdness of the culture and mingling with the crowd, who seemed to have come from all across Australia to absorb the psychedelic party atmosphere.
Everything was relatively smooth until that night, where a friend asked if I wanted to go for a walk and have a cigarette to which I agreed. We walked from our camp spot to a giant circus tent that had been, earlier that day, a trading post for clothing. I looked in and was absolutely shocked at what I saw. In the tent there was a man, probably in his late 30s, in an absolute and utter psychosis. He was screaming out incomprehensible words, frothing from his mouth and tearing up the grass in the tent, wearing nothing but his underwear and obviously super fucked up.
This came as a huge fright to me; I was entirely sober at the time but it was as if I was glancing directly into the void of insanity that had beset this guy, who continued to scream and convulse and tear up the grass until he was escorted away by event security. I later found out that he was on GHB, Ketamine and Acid, for anyone wondering.
Needless to say I was a little bit concerned after seeing these things, and struggled to sleep that night, but eventually got some rest before I took the 1 hour drive home after waking up. It was like all of a sudden everything at the doof was a bit too strange, the people a little bit too out there, and everything a little bit overwhelming.
I went home and hugged my mum simply for being there, and felt very warm and grounded, but did not want to return to the doof. My friends, however, had other plans, and persuaded me to drive back the following midday. I confessed the effect the events had on me to a friend of mine, one who I had also told I was planning on tripping that weekend, who told me to do it anyway and that doofs were a great environment to be tripping in.
As a veteran of LSD, 1P-LSD, and a reasonable quantity of mushrooms, I thought that I would be able to handle the intensity of any trip. In the most stupid thing I have done in my life, I ate a lot of mushrooms that had just been picked (not certain how many exactly, but it must have been at least 20), had a good dosing of rum that had psilocybin extract in it, and took 3 mushroom caps.
I remember at first it was a pleasant buzz which lead to me feeling a little bit dissociated, coupled with mild visual distortions, but that all too quickly gave way to confusion and nausea. My friend Josh looked to me and said "I just have no idea what's even going on hey" in a joking way, but it seemed to be so charged with negative emotion that I had to seclude myself to stop from throwing up or crying.
I went to the festival toilets, feeling that if I had a moment to myself to reflect and clear my stomach I would feel better. While on the seat I heard a woman in the cubicle next to me say "someone's taking a shit, that's fucking gross. I can hear it", which served only to make me feel more uncomfortable in my mind, as I was hardly able to comprehend what people were saying logically. I was suddenly ashamed of myself, scared of where I was, and felt that I had done something terribly wrong.
Leaving the port-a-loo, I walked over to my car, where I played a couple of songs over the speakers to try and mellow down a bit. I felt so sick, and gagged out the door for about 10 minutes to no avail. Although this helped a little, it was as though a part of my mind was experiencing a living hell at what was around me, seeing people who were obviously tripping walking aimlessly around, while I was simultaneously judging people who had dressed up in a 'drug-fucked' way (who were probably all having way more fun than me, mind you).
I was thinking to myself; I can't let myself end up like them. Look at that! They've got nothing to enjoy apart from drugs. They look like they do this all year! Do they have a social life? etc. etc., which I now figure was a manifestation of my own mental stigma that drugs are to be used extremely moderately.
Having seen that guy completely losing his mind a couple of nights before, things were looking very grim, and I felt an overwhelming sense of dread and disconnection as I sat in my car. A group of people which included Josh wandered to my car at this stage, and to me they all seemed extremely distant, trying to carry hopeless and boring conversations which trailed off into confusion in the effects of them all being under the influence of various drugs.
They left quickly, and my terrible dread remained, I felt like I was sinking down into my car and that there was nowhere that I could possibly go, nobody that I could talk to, and nothing I could do to feel better. I wanted to call my other friend who had driven down with me but I didn't have reception. I was sitting alone in my car smoking cigarettes, idly listening to music and essentially slipping further into the negativity that I had created. At this point, I thought that one thing I could have done to feel better would be to write down how I felt, so I got my phone and wrote my thoughts in notes. Warning, they were quite dark. This was the transcript:
Quote:
To take drugs is an attempt to satisfy the longing in all of our heads to no conclusion. The only possible outcome is complete dissociation, something I would struggle to overcome. To know oneself is the greatest gift, and to neglect the gift of life is to forfeit everything you were handed by your ancestors. You only have one conscience, why damage it?
So, there's that. Obviously I was quite deep in thought and had arrived at some very damning conclusions about the people around me, but I was so sincerely petrified of messing with my brain that I perpetuated my own suffering. It was not until my mate I'd been trying to call came and found me that I felt at all good, and was able to dissolve the intensity of the trip and enjoy the visuals as usual. I felt very weary, extremely out of touch, and nauseous afterwards. I felt like the thought loops remained for hours, even though I know they didn't.
In the following months, I experienced some very strange things. Several times during everyday activities, I would regain that feeling of dread, and have extremely uncomfortable thoughts of suicide, existentialism and death. It seemed as though no matter how much I condemned these ideas, they kept recurring in my mind.
Furthermore, I felt very mentally out of it, feeling as though it hurt me physically to think sometimes, and that most of my thoughts were pointless and would lead me to no answer or reason. I have had bad moments in trips before but never something so monumental.
I dreaded the thought of the trip, but it continually haunted me for about 4 weeks afterwards, almost like it was constantly on my mind without me even paying it attention. As if no matter what I thought, I could not escape the dreadful burden the trip had left on my mind.
All of this has been easing a bit lately, but I have been left slightly traumatised and still feel a little bit affected. I can't help but wonder whether my thoughts are subject to the effects of the trip, and it worries me that I should fall back into the dreadful nothingness that I experienced during the trip, and go back into that unbearable realm of thought.
I have never actually admitted this to anyone, so if you did read this far, thank you for hearing me out. I am glad that my story falls on open ears, and even in admitting it I feel a little bit more optimistic. What I left to ask though, is
a) What should I do to prevent these terrible leftover feelings, and how can I shift my thought to less negative things? b) Is there anything I can do to get over what happened? c) Is this normal?
TL;DR - Got massively fucked up on roughly 40 shrooms, entered the void hardcore, worst trip of my life left me with a lot of mental negativity, how can I get over it?
Thank you so much guys! <3
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