First ever post here but after encountering such a powerful substance I felt it a responsibility to share.
I recently bought some land in northwest Florida. There’s a creek with many large pines along it’s coast. After a humid fall day(common for fl) I went out for a walk along the creek and was taken back at the sight. I had never seen Amanita muscaria in person before only on Mario, emojis, etc. They were everywhere. Amanita muscaria var. persicina to be exact. I knew little about their psychedelic properties other than I knew it wasn’t Psilocybin. I picked two grocery bags full. Later when I was home I researched them extensively.
I dried them out via fan for 2 days and bagged them with silica In a dark jar. I stored them for about a month and a half, still with no intention of really ever trying it myself. After reading all the posts regarding Amanita Muscaria and hearing a recent Joe Rogan podcast where Paul Stamets recollected an experience, it seemed to me something that wasn’t worth doing.
My mother in law; a seasoned hippie, drug user, recovering alcoholic came into town to visit for Christmas and I mentioned to her that I had a stash of the Mushrooms that inspired the holiday. She immediately said she wanted to make a tea from the mushrooms and began searching online for a recipe. I laughed and told her she was welcome to brew some up that night, but I’d be having a cup after seeing her reaction to it(total bitch,right?). She’s Cajun as fuck so she is preparing a huge dinner gumbo, cutting up vegetables, rice in the rice cooker etc. The oven then starts beeping and she proceeds to take out a cookie sheet of all the amanitas crisped dry. I then weighed them at 17.6 grams and she dumped them into some simmering water. After about 35 minutes I went back in the kitchen and found her pouring the orange tinged liquid into a tea pitcher. There was about 2.5 cups of tea.
My mother in law is 5’3 and all of about 115 lbs. I am 6’5 and 165 lbs.
5:20 pm : She drinks a cup while she’s still preparing dinner. Within 5 minutes she downed it. Still going hard in the kitchen.
5:40 pm : She starts feeling sleepy. We had smoked quite a bit of cannabis and I was still skeptical of her preparation of the tea, so I figured that’s what she was feeling. It was at this time I poured myself an 8oz cup of the tea for myself. The taste really wasn’t bad at all, just a light earthy taste. It was gone within minutes.
5:45 pm : My mother in law starts slurring her words a little from the fatigue she was feeling. She laid down on our couch, said a few things that didn’t make any sense, and passed out within seconds.
5:55 pm : My mother in law is sleeping like a log. I had a very strange metallic taste in my mouth and began having some blurry vision. I decided to go take a shower and brush my teeth while my wife and father in law kept an eye on her in the living room. While in the shower I start feeling strange, a little wobbly.
6:05 pm : I turned off the water and proceeded to dry off when I heard the commotion from the living room. ‘OH MY GOD! FUCK! SHES THROWING UP EVERYWHERE’ with faint gagging and splashing in the background. I wrapped my towel around my waist and sprinted out of my bathroom to see them standing her up, vomit projecting from her head that was bobbling around like a toy. I immediately ran back into the bathroom and shoved my fingers down my throat In a desperate attempt to avoid whatever the fuck she was going through. I was unsuccessful. I threw on some clothes and went to assist the horrific scene unfolding in my living room.
6:10 pm : My MIL(mother-in-law) was in the bathroom throwing up with my father in law. My wife looks at me, pissed because she thought it was a bad idea in the first place, and said ‘hope you’re ready to go through that!’. At this point I’m more concerned with possible poisoning because of the vast amount of vomit on the couch and floor. I had also began having cold sweats to accompany my blurred vision.
My mother in law finally stops puking and her husband carried her to the bedroom while she was crying in confusion. She fell asleep for about ten minutes. At this point I have been thru every Amanita internet thread that existed and found out the the vomiting and cold sweats were actually common. I soaked 2 shirts within 30 minutes but was rather calm through the super intense cold sweats. Finally I had immense nausea rush over me and I ran to the toilet and hurled more than I have in years. Still never got more than blurry vision and a disconnect from reality.
6:30 pm : Thought the night was winding down but unfortunately not even close. Screams erupted from my mother in laws room. We rushed in to find her in the fetal position. She was frantically screaming random names, some that I recognized as family. Then she started screaming bloody murder. Screaming that she was dying, then it would calm down, then screaming that she was dying again. This went on for two hours. She has a history of mental illness so at this point I have convinced myself that It may have actually broken her brain. My wife and went to our room and left my father in law to deal with her because there wasn’t a chance we could help. We laid in bed for hours hearing him talking her down from severe panic. It was a real shit show. I went thru 7 shirts and 6 hot showers dealing the the cold sweats and hot flashes.
3:00am : MIL finally stops yelling randomly and I fall asleep.
The next morning 7:00am : I woke up feeling pretty weird mainly concerned with what kind of state my mother in law was going to be in. She was completely back and coherent, and explained the chaos that happened in what she explained to be a different dimension. She explained how she kept reliving her life over and over again. She said she felt every bit of pain she had during her childhood and how horrible it was, but then mentioned how amazing the good times were, becoming teary eyed and emotional. She started mentioning some names I remembered her screaming in the night, she said that she had to die for each of them over and over again. At one point she said she had become an infant, which explained her urinating all over herself while she was babbling like a baby. She also mentioned how the entire time she felt she was falling off a cliff and right when she was done falling it would start again and come in waves.
Again, I had minimal effects in regards to tripping. I honestly more or less feel like I poisoned myself and got sick from it. We drank the same amount but I’m assuming the weight difference and brain chemistry must have had a ton to do with it.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I really appreciated the info I found that helped me get thru and deal with what was happening that night, so I felt the need to share in hopes that it may help someone else.
I have learned a whole new respect for this mushroom. It was a humbling experience and I don’t regret it.
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