(Mushrooms / 3.5 g) Need to debrief on a mushroom trip

[Flickering]

Bluelight's helped me out with this stuff before and I'm very thankful to have you guys around, it's great to know there are people out there with a lot more experience than me who can help me interpret these things.

So, I'm five hours in on a mushroom trip, and I redosed around T+01, took 3.5 grams in total (half eighth, I think). I've had a smattering of other psychedelic experiences, but I think most of you will agree with me: Madame Mushroom is a harsh mistress and she's quite unlike anyone else, except possibly ayahuasca. It's funny to think, if this had been my first experience, without a doubt I would have called it a 'bad trip'. But the thing is, I totally get now what I've heard more experienced psychonauts say: that there are no 'bad trips', only difficult experiences. Well, this one was VERY difficult.

Ego loss and afterwards, believing I'd lost my mind, and thinking I'd eaten a poison mushroom and I was gonna die. What can I say, the mushrooms around Sydney are pretty fucking strong. Again though, it's funny, having about fourteen trips under my belt to date, I rode out the worst of it by thinking, "You've been in a state like this before, it will pass, you're fine." Things can turn around so quickly. One moment, I was thinking, "This isn't strong enough, I need more." An hour later, I was rolling on the floor laughing and saying, "I can't remember ANYTHING! I don't know what any of this [physical sensations and the thought that, for example, I was wearing jeans] means!" And in another moment again, time didn't exist and I couldn't tell what reality was and I was terrified and I knew it had to do with the mushrooms I'd eaten, but I didn't know what 'mushrooms' were. There were no anchors - I knew my own name, for instance, but not what it meant to have a name.

I had doubts going into it. Wasn't in a good place in my life. One friend wants to kill himself. Work is a major stress. That kind of thing. But thing is, I've been depressed for seven years, so feeling like that is normal for me. Certainly I've used psychedelics to help steer myself out of this state of mind to great effect, and in fact today, I can say I see the light thanks to LSD, mescaline and mushrooms. However the state of mind I was in when I ate those shrooms was, I believe, what launched it into seriously fucking dark territory. Ego loss can be beautiful or it can be terrifying, there's no real in-between.

I have tripped harder than this on mushrooms before. It was my first psychedelic experience (though I had taken DXM prior to that). Strangely enough I only took two grams, but I followed it down with a glass of freshly-ground lemon juice, having no idea that citrus supposedly potentiates the trip. Well, I can say there's no way in hell even the strongest two grams in the world could do what they did to me that night - amnesia, events out of chronological order in my memory, thinking I was God, everything spinning faster and faster out of control... it was like what I went through tonight, only, three times stronger. Certainly if my intention to heal and to explore hadn't been serious, it would have turned me off using drugs forever.

So, that's it, I just needed to debrief from a very rough experience. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did come back, and I came back with an idea for a short story as well, so that's something. And I think I'll finish off the night with some slightly mind-expanded meditation into what I came for, which was, a deep wound in my soul that I wanted to heal.

I wonder, was my experience normal for this dose? I don't think it was technically psychosis, because I was aware that I was insane, so really it was more a kind of delirium. I definitely FELT crazy, and it was terrifying. I was thinking of taking it really light after this, maybe a half tab in a few months and then a full tab sometime next year, just a gentle way back in without going too far. On the other hand, even after being through hell, I feel... totally fine, and in fact eager for my next planned experience, which was 26 inches of san pedro in the middle of the desert, on my own. I dunno... thoughts, anyone? Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

[sockpuppet]

edt

 

[Flickering]

Thanks sockpuppet. I'm not sure they were cubensis, they might have been psilocybe subaeruginosa. I've heard that redosing can take a trip to nasty places, and though it hasn't been my experience before, I've only redosed on mild doses. Could that really have been what launched it into twisted territory, or is ego loss just my particular reaction to that dose?

I guess the only way to find out is to try it again, though I'm not sure I want to - if 3.5g causes to me to forget everything, then I don't see the point of ever taking more than 3g of mushrooms. I'm sure ego loss can be beautiful when you're able to just go with it, and I was... at first. Then there was a song playing with the sound of rainfall, and I started thinking everything was wet, and that I might have pissed on the bed (I hadn't) because it felt like a rolling ocean. Then I couldn't remember whether that was really bad or what I should do about it, and I started getting more and more stressed and realised I had no anchors to reality, so I felt I urgently needed to do something, but couldn't tell what.

Meanwhile my mind expanded to transcend language, ego and bodily / temporal existence into a glimpse at the overarching soul that is the entire universe. It was a particularly strange view of something I've seen before on LSD and mushrooms, which I call the consciousness matrix. When I was 'dying', I thought, "Well, nothing much I can do about it... I just hope this doesn't hurt too bad, and I wonder what comes next?" That's the only thing you can really do, and if I hadn't been able to let go of life, things might have gone much, much worse.

 

[webbykevin]

I didn't find what I was looking for,

You seem to have totally got the point of mushrooms and also handled the intense waves very well, what was it you were looking for ?

 

[Flickering]

I've realised, through prior acid and mescaline trips, that a huge source of the depression I've endured these last seven years has had to do with a fracture in my self-image, caused by having roles forced upon me and things I've experienced that have confused the feeling of who I am. Being able to feel my real self on LSD was a life-changing experience. It was really only a glimpse, but for the first time I had hope that things could actually be better (instead of just hoping to one day have hope).

So, this time, I wanted to go much, much deeper into that sense of self, until I merged with it again. I planned to do that by blindfolding myself and, if I was able to direct it, hopping back through memories of a time before the damage occurred so I could remember how to it felt to be whole. Then, I wanted to take that feeling back into my life today, focus on it and meditate on it in daily life, and heal the rift.

Of course, I also knew that of all substances, mushrooms in particular have a habit of taking you where THEY want to go. So, on the advice of a friend, I decided to simply let the experience happen, and if there was an opportunity to delve into that, then I could take it. I soon realised, it wasn't going to be possible. I was too high to even put the blindfold on, haha

The trip taught me that I'm not going to be able to heal by doing what I had planned to do - not at this point, anyway. It showed me that part of the damage was severe desensitization, and it showed me where that desensitization came from. Reflecting on it later, I realised that I had to actually move on with my life, namely, by finding someone I could really love again, someone who really gets it, which would be a rare thing, but possible, I think.

So you could say, it wasn't what I wanted right now, but it was what I needed.

I could have handled the ego loss better. Part of the reason it was so difficult, I think, was because I was vaguely aware of my life and problems, enough that the dissociation from it was extremely uncomfortable and stressful. Maybe next time I will. I could've also handled it a lot worse. At the start of the trip I remember thinking, "A psychonaut can say, 'Sure, I'll go with the experience wherever it takes me.' And the mushroom tends to take that as a challenge. But you'd better follow where it leads or you're in for a world of hurt."

 

[thoughtsUnThought]

Good writeup..!
I think you got what you needed from that exp to aid in you're healing, even if it wasn't what you planned for.

Getting to that point of conscious meltdown on psilocybin can be scary and is almost always overwhelming, but the medicine in such comes from the renewal...at least that's how it works for me. I go to the mushrooms to die and be reborn, not very fun usually, but when I come to afterward everything is sparkling with possibilities. My mind gets reset you could say, back to the raw and satisfying exp of existing on earth...the mushrooms break my boundaries down and show me that I really am grateful and happy with what is.

It is the after effects, or the transformation, for which I go to them.Perhaps this perplexing route to healing is where they've led your as well flickering...maybe you are better suited to now tackle these goals of introspection you have in mind.

When the being is clear of doubt, clear of hesitation, and truly in the seat of self unobstructed Then one is at the crossroads of all possibility....each destination begins with single step, and sometimes you gotta freak out, die, and be reborn before you can acknowledge the possibilities within your grasp best of progressions friends!

 

[thoughtsUnThought]

The other primary benefit the mushrooms seem to have for me is a sort of reenlivening of my fascination with reality...seems like the cosmic secrets are within reach....and even if one argued that there is no objective secret obtainable, the point is moot. The benefit is not that I am necessarily on the path to discovery (though I feel this is often true to degree as well) but rather in that I am excited about the philosophical depth inherent in life. Feels like a mystery and i'm a detective or something, and this effect lasts for Weeks if not months...very Scooby Doo mystery feeling lol.

Quite conducive to minimizing the effect of stress caused by mundane BS, I dropped a plate or spilled something on my covers? Peh, no big deal, life is way too intense and beautiful for me to become stressed over such...clean it up, them back to the cosmic mystery!