What can I say, SE Melb is mushroom heaven!
I wouldn't say i'm the king. There are a lot of lurkers that don't post in this thread who are just as knowledgeable as myself, but I guess I could take the title since I am the only one posting
Sorry to hear about your trip dude. I only ever prepare my own tea's for this very reason. Do you know how many were used to make the brew and the size/age of the mushrooms? Substrate they were picked in? They would have been subs. I wish people wouldn't call them gold tops and just use the species and genus for IDing. World wide there must be over 40 psilocybe species referred to as gold tops and the mushrooms we get in southern Aus are
Psilocybe Subaeruginosa, not blue meanies or gold tops or whatever people want to call them.
Tryptamine psychedelics are without a doubt, more intense than LSD and many other psychedelic drugs. They demand respect and if this is not given, they will show you why you should respect them...
There are no articles available on the potency variations of
Psilocybe Subaeruginosa. There is a lot of information on other Psilocybe species varying in potency up to 4 times from the same patch. I would estimate that the average sub from pine needle substrate (very acidic and not the best habitat) is 4 or more times weaker than sub's from wood chipped garden beds and bush sub's are somewhere in between both.
Over the years I have come unstuck a few times while dosing tea. The truth is you never know how potent it's going to be, even when you factor in years of knowledge. Whilst garden bed subs tend to be the most potent and therefor should be dosed accordingly, I have been blown away by very small amounts of bush subs from time to time. Pine forest sub's have always been a let down for myself and friends, but i'm sure you get the odd potent sucker even from this substrate.
Drinking a tea as opposed to eating the mushroom makes for rapid absorption of the active alkaloids via the digestive tract. I have commonly came up within 15 minutes when dosing this way. As you noticed, you are usually back to level ground a lot sooner from a tea because your body has both taken in and broken down the drug a lot quicker than it would if you were to eat the mushrooms.
If you ever find yourself in this situation again, remember one simple rule...
Don't give into astonishment. No matter how strong and crazy that trip gets, don't let it beat you and don't give up and be overcome. This one rule has helped me through my most intense DMT and psilocybin trips. I recommend sharing it with friends and reminding people of the rule while they are coming up on what could potentially be a high dose. Giving in to the trip is when things can turn very ugly and I have had very little troublesome trips since taking this advise on board. There are many other ways to train the mind to accept strong hallucinogenic states with ease, but this is a good starting point for the novice.
Your trip sounds very intense, did you have any entity contact during this experience?
For me, mushroom trips are forever different. Some trips have similar aspects to others, but no one trip is ever the same. Even when I have powdered a bag of dry mushrooms for even dosing, the same dose on an empty stomach one week will give completely different effects the next. This ranges from intensity, bodyload, visual distortion, entity contact etc.
Early last week I ate 3 tiny pins from the bush and struggled with entity contact of an evil nature throughout the trip. The trip started with creatures not unlike those in TOOL film clips and then evolved into evil gremlin like critters that were annoying and somewhat frightening. Although pins through to mushrooms that are just breaking the veil are the most potent, I usually dose a fair bit above this level as that is where I feel most comfortable. This is the first trip this season where I had entity contact of any kind. The OEV's were no where near as powerful as those from strong tea's I dosed earlier in the season (these felt like 4 hour DMT trips), but that just shows the range of different trips one can have on these mushrooms.
Interesting how you noted the calming effects of smoking the joint. I find joints to be a valuable asset for high dose psychedelic trips, just be careful with potent bud or hash and stay away from bongs as the super quick hit can be detrimental more than anything. Just note that smoking Mary Jane has been the tipping point for many peoples bad trips over the years. Everything in moderation as they say
I recommend only doing high doses of any psychs, especially mushrooms, with very good friends and in a nice relaxing/safe setting.
Thanks for sharing that with us student
All the best for your next trip
The rest can suck my fat one and not ruin my good high 
