Before the lockdown, I haven't heard about wood lovers paralysis. However, this phenomenon kept me very busy during lockdown.
Literally 20 meters from house which is right next to the forest, is about a 100m x 10m area where wavy caps are thriving. It has been there for a year without me noticing, until it came under my attention and it literally felt I came across my own personal gold mine.
So everything started with a lot of excitement, until about 2 - 3 hours after ingesting f*** knows what quantity. I was busy playing games when suddenly I couldn't manage to press the buttons to play anymore, followed by a very blurred vision. I noticed that that paralysis was coming in waves.
Considering all of the above, this was my first wild mushroom hunt. The paralysis and the the blurred vision had me scared sh*tless to say the least.
I decided to go lie down and wait for the nightmare to pass. So after lying down I started to feel normal again after about 20 minutes. I decided to try and eat something, when the food started falling out of my mouth. The paralysis seemed to get worse as I moved a muscle (literally any muscle), and after a brief pause after the muscle is paralyzed, I get another chance to move the muscle again. The longer I pause, the more movement I manage to get out of the muscle when moving again.
So I decided to go lie down again for about an hour. After standing up again, and moving around I was confident this nightmare was over. That was when I decided to go to the shop...
When I was walking around in the shop, my legs got sloppy very quickly, I managed to grab a packet of chips and walked to the counter like someone with a very serious disability. Got out into the car and chilled for about 5 min. I then tried to reverse out and I couldn't properly get my foot down on the clutch, I couldn't drive!
I waited it out for another 15 minutes and tried again, and managed to get home. I decided to get as stoned as I can, drop a few Ambiens and get the day over with.
Initially after my experience I googled the paralysis, and doing a paralysis search on shrooms can be a bit awkward. A lot of people seem to have weird physical experiences somewhat confused with some sort of paralysis on shrooms which is what you come by doing a search on the paralysis. So I thought okay, let's leave it there and try to troubleshoot what exactly went wrong.
The Dose
Seeing that I didn't measure the dose in any way, the most obvious place to start was the dosage. I've eaten a lot of mushrooms before, but not so often fresh mushrooms. A dosage disorientation seamed very likely to me. This time I decided to dry out the mushrooms, consume it in a form I'm use to, and sort of know how much I'm eating without a scale. And again, paralyzed. This time I didn't panic, just lied on my back, and waited for the time to pass.
The Species
So it got me thinking, maybe I'm consuming the wrong mushrooms. Let's just be a bit more careful, which is very difficult when you're sure in the first place. *careful picking followed* And again, paralyzed....
The Pause
So I was sort of disgusted with the whole situation. Having all these "shrooms", not being able to use them. Let's just say it kept my mind busy....
The Research
So finally I stumbled across wood lovers paralysis. The species match, the experiences match, I knew okay, I got it.
So the sort of obvious guesses were pointed out by the sources talking about WLP:
1. The way the mushroom starts to rot at the top (The Bacterial Contamination Hypothesis) 2. The Dose Hypothesis, been there... 3. Substrate 4. Allergic reaction
Without too much effort I eliminated them one by one, paralyzed every time, except for substrate. The allergic reaction I "eliminated" with the use of Allergex.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the overwhelmingly opinion if you google the matter that tea works and takes away the paralysis, but tea didn't work one bit for me.
The substrate was a very challenging one. I had so many mushrooms growing in this 10m x 100m strip, but nothing in the grass.
So when our lockdown level dropped, I took a walk to the dam one day, and stumbled across probably two grams (dry) worth of wavy caps, and bingo...!
Took the mushrooms, had a good trip, and voila, no paralysis.
The Analysis
So I kept thinking about the whole situation and tried to differentiate between the two settings where the mushrooms are growing:
1. Wood substrate - The mushrooms had a very sort of protecting environment. Overhead trees, trees stumps everywhere giving them shelter, consistent humidity with a river right next to the entire strip where they grow.
2. Grass substrate - I've picked the mushrooms on the edge of a jeep track, are exposed to the sun, no shelter whatsoever for the mushrooms.
So the two scenarios got me thinking maybe the age of the mushroom is somehow the culprit.
The Retry
So I went out again, picking only the smallest of mushrooms from the wood substrate area.
And VOILA, I tripped without paralysis.
The Retry 2
I tripped without paralysis.
Conclusion
No I don't think I have it figured out, because I'm the only test subject.
People are not so keen to eat mushrooms to get paralyzed, and being an ethical person, I can't lie about the old mushies to give it to someone.
But, considering my experience, I'm sure as hell willing to put a lot of money on my personal hypothesis. My hypothesis obviously relates to The Bacterial Contamination Hypothesis. But, I must say, long before you start to see them rotten, they paralyze you. I've picked small mushrooms, medium mushrooms, large mushrooms and they paralyze you, because even small mushrooms can be old. But be sure to pick young mushrooms, and the paralyses seems to fade away with the younger you go.
All I'm saying, it has something to do with the age of the mushroom. If it passes a certain age, you get the paralysis. By the time them caps start waving almost 90 degrees, them waves hit you so hard and you fall to the ground. Doesn't sound too bad, but them waves keeping coming long after the tripping is over, and you literally start tripping....
Prove me wrong, that age is not the culprit.
Edited by syNtheticz0r (05/13/20 12:21 PM)
|