my only "bad" trip - approx. 5g amazonian cubensis
since we've got a few of these up, i figure i'll post my one experience w/ mushrooms which i regarded as "bad" while it happened.
in actuality, the bad trip was only a couple hours of the night, and forced me to change a lot of things about how i was living.
it happened more than a year ago now, but i remember it all very clearly. it was dec. 10th, 1999.
first, a little background on the situation. i'd broken up with my girlfriend of 28 months on the preceding tuesday...well, she'd broken up with me to be more precise. i was pretty much devastated by it, and needed to escape. i know escapism only furthers a problem, but it was my only answer at the time. at the same time, i was around a lot of mushrooms. i wound up eating half an eighth, or an eighth that tuesday, wed., and friday. the 10th was a saturday night. myself, and about 12 friends headed over to our friends' apartment where there were both a kegger (downstairs) and a trip/roll party (upstairs) going on. when i arrived, i bought an eighth of mushrooms from the guy who got me the ones i'd been eating all week. he said they were better than the others, and i believed him. however, because i'd been eating so much, i figured i should still take an eighth because i was building a tolerance to them. consequently, i ate the whole bag. about an hour later, as i was really starting to trip, my friend bought a 1/4 of the same mushrooms. he didn't want to eat them all, so he gave me about half of one of the eighths, and ate the rest.
as we sat upstairs, my trip got progressively crazy. i remember that all the walls turned an eery color of red, like the color was seeping into the walls from the actual structures of the house, from inside the wall. but i was ok with that. i definitely had the classical wall melting going on, but much more vivid than i had ever imagined possible. i watched a picture slowly slide down the wall to my friend's head. my friend slid down the wall, with the picture, into the bed. it's rather hard to put in words what i was seeing. i was ok with this too. i ran to the window to take a peek at the outside world, figuring the sight would be absolutely magical. i was a little disturbed by what i saw. a large medical building about a block away was what was really bothering me. i knew the building well, as i had spent a lot of time at this apartment over the past few months. as i looked at it, i didn't feel as though i was hallucinating at all. it wasn't moving, wasn't melting, nothing odd in the least. but everything else was going crazy, absolutely insane. as i stared at this building, somewhat confused by its refusal to move, i became convinced that the building wasn't there. it's hard to explain what i mean, but it was like i was understanding the matrix. i saw the building, if i had gone over to it, i'm sure i could have touched it, but it just wasn't real. i had to look away.
but still, i was fine. i was tripping like i never had before, but i was in a safe environment, and i felt confident i was fine. i left the bedroom and went into the bedroom next door. there were 3 or 4 kids i didn't know in there, also dosed up on mushrooms. 2 of them were first timers. we sat and talked, it was mostly nonsensical conversation, i certainly wasn't capable of coherent or meaningful speech at the moment. the entire situation got ridiculously funny, as conversations (and all things) tend to do under the influence of mushrooms. before long, we had all been reduced to a bundle of laughing idiots. any time anybody would even try and regain their composure, it would just result in an even harder round of laughter. at this point, something odd happened to all of us. i was laughing so hard i could barely catch a breath and it was actually painful. i was laughing so hard tears formed in my eyes. suddenly i was bawling my eyes out, sobbing like there was no tomorrow. the other 3 were in the process of suffering a similar fate. but, within a couple minutes, i was sobbing so hard it sounded like a laugh, and before i knew it i was laughing hysterically. this went back and forth several times before we all fled the room, convinced it was the problem.
for some reason, it seemed to work. i returned to the room where all of my friends were. a few had departed on walks, to go out and explore. it sounded like a great idea to me, so i gathered a couple people and headed downstairs to the front door. i should have known immediately it wasn't going to happen. as i came down the flight of stairs, into the kegger, i was immediately overwhelmed. people were morphing into each other, and the sounds just made my brain crazier. i made a b-line through the people and out the front door. what happened at the front door was very....odd, for lack of a better word. i made it to the second step outside the door and stopped. "go back inside" was suddenly the only thought in my brain, i could almost see the words written across my vision and hear them being spoken inside my head. wisely, i think, i heeded them. i quickly made my way back upstairs to the safety of the bedroom. it made me uncomfortable thinking i couldn't leave, so i tried the back door. out the bedroom which had caused my fit of laughter/tears there was a door which had fire escape style stairs going down the back. it was darker and calmer back here, i thought perhaps i could get out this way. but, as soon as i began to descend, the same thing happened. "go back inside". i did. so, that was it. i was confined to the other bedroom, it was my only safe place. still, i was ok with this. not happy, but i felt safe. as long as nothing went wrong, i would be fine. i have no concept of time here. i was somewhere in my trip, it was showing no signs of wearing off as yet.
a couple of my friends suggested that we smoke some weed, to "take the edge off". i don't know why i thought it would, i'd smoked while tripping before. they shouldn't have known better, they were both first-timers to mushrooms. but, in my state, it sounded like a good idea. as we smoked, things inside my head just got crazy. similarly, the things around me did too. the walls weren't just melting, they were expanding and contracting, as though they were made out of a putty-like substance. this was the first moment where i felt fear of any sort. but, i curled up into a ball and held a pillow to my chest. for some reason, i felt safe as long as i was small, unobtrusive, as though i could disappear if i needed too. soon after we had finished smoking, my friend whos room it was came in, looking panicked at the very least. he says, "the cops are here, just chill up here and everything will be fine." what had happened was downstairs, the drunks had thrown the tapped keg out the window (which is a good 8 feet up off the street). this, unsurprisingly, drew a lot of unwanted attention, and got the cops called to break up the keg. at this point, paranoia took over. i had some bud on me, i was tripping, and i was trapped. i couldn't leave. i'd already tried to leave with no success. but i was panicked. i got up and ran to the back stairs, hoping i could leave.
but, anybody who has ever been afraid while on mushrooms, knows what happens visually. it was a nightmare outside that door, i was sure i would be killed if i left. i ran back into the room and curled up again. this, is when my trip went bad. i could no longer make out what people were saying, it was all chaotic noise that my brain couldn't comprehend, or process. so, i tried to tell my friends.
i couldn't speak.
my mouth moved, but no sounds came out. occassionally i would make a sound similar to the noises a person makes when they are being choked, gasping for breath. i started to cry, i was scared. i was going to go to jail, at best. they'd come upstairs, they'd search me, they'd take me to jail. i couldn't cry, tears came, but no sounds still. my eyes rna like a river, but i couldn't even make crying sounds. inside my head, i was screaming bloody murder. being completely unable to communicate while tripping is not a fun state. dave (the guy whos room it was) came back in. "the landlord is here, everybody has to leave riht now."
psychosis sets in. now i knew i was done for. completely helpless. my mind raced with all the things i was sorry for, all the things i'd done, hadn't done, done wrong came out. and still, i couldn't say a word. i began to pick myself apart, as fear became self-hate. i started to hate myself for all the things i'd done, the way i was living. it was all a lie. my whole life was a lie, and i just wanted to tell everyone that i was sorry. but i couldn't. this was my punishment. my fear of dying that night went away, i was sure i wasn't going to be that lucky. instead, i was going to remain deaf and mute. i was going to stay crazy, doomed to hate myself and feel sorry for myself, and i wasn't going to get to die. i almost wanted to at that point.
dave saw that i was in a bad state of affairs, and took me away from everybody and everything. all my friends from school went home, having only a vague idea what was going on. they'd seen my tears, and later they told me the look on my face was scaring them really badly, but didn't know the hell i'd thrown myself into.
we sat for i don't know how long in another room. he talked to me, and though i couldn't understand a word he was saying, it helped to have him there. as the sun started to come up, my senses, and sanity began to come back. i remembered i was on drugs (somehow i'd forgotten in my madness) and realized that they were in fact wearing off, i was starting to get all my faculties back. slowly, we went over what had gone on in my head, and why.
as the morning progressed, i started to make sense of it, realizing i'd just been running all week by using drugs. that it was something i needed to deal with, and that there was a lot more to it than breaking up with my girlfriend. i felt i'd been a phony, being who people had wanted me to be.
i don't regard this as a bad trip anymore. it is the most terrified i have ever been in my entire life, i have never felt so trapped, and sure of my impending doom in my life. at the same time, i've never had one night show me so clearly what i was doing wrong, how to live, who i am. and in that sense, it is one of the greatest trips i've ever had.
and thank you q-tip for inspiring me to post this. your post reminded me a lot of this one, though you were outside looking for a safe place to go in, and i was trapped inside, trying to get out.
bc
------------------
bc-
**Proud to be an Official member of the Stuck-Up/8-Up Crew**
"Fuck PLUR! it's all about hardcore ass fucking!!"
We'll make great pets...
"drug suppliers, typically wearing 'Ecko' brand sweat shirts shuffle around the dance floor, chanting softly, 'want some pills? k?'" - Shu Shin Luh, The Chicago Sun-Times
since we've got a few of these up, i figure i'll post my one experience w/ mushrooms which i regarded as "bad" while it happened.
in actuality, the bad trip was only a couple hours of the night, and forced me to change a lot of things about how i was living.
it happened more than a year ago now, but i remember it all very clearly. it was dec. 10th, 1999.
first, a little background on the situation. i'd broken up with my girlfriend of 28 months on the preceding tuesday...well, she'd broken up with me to be more precise. i was pretty much devastated by it, and needed to escape. i know escapism only furthers a problem, but it was my only answer at the time. at the same time, i was around a lot of mushrooms. i wound up eating half an eighth, or an eighth that tuesday, wed., and friday. the 10th was a saturday night. myself, and about 12 friends headed over to our friends' apartment where there were both a kegger (downstairs) and a trip/roll party (upstairs) going on. when i arrived, i bought an eighth of mushrooms from the guy who got me the ones i'd been eating all week. he said they were better than the others, and i believed him. however, because i'd been eating so much, i figured i should still take an eighth because i was building a tolerance to them. consequently, i ate the whole bag. about an hour later, as i was really starting to trip, my friend bought a 1/4 of the same mushrooms. he didn't want to eat them all, so he gave me about half of one of the eighths, and ate the rest.
as we sat upstairs, my trip got progressively crazy. i remember that all the walls turned an eery color of red, like the color was seeping into the walls from the actual structures of the house, from inside the wall. but i was ok with that. i definitely had the classical wall melting going on, but much more vivid than i had ever imagined possible. i watched a picture slowly slide down the wall to my friend's head. my friend slid down the wall, with the picture, into the bed. it's rather hard to put in words what i was seeing. i was ok with this too. i ran to the window to take a peek at the outside world, figuring the sight would be absolutely magical. i was a little disturbed by what i saw. a large medical building about a block away was what was really bothering me. i knew the building well, as i had spent a lot of time at this apartment over the past few months. as i looked at it, i didn't feel as though i was hallucinating at all. it wasn't moving, wasn't melting, nothing odd in the least. but everything else was going crazy, absolutely insane. as i stared at this building, somewhat confused by its refusal to move, i became convinced that the building wasn't there. it's hard to explain what i mean, but it was like i was understanding the matrix. i saw the building, if i had gone over to it, i'm sure i could have touched it, but it just wasn't real. i had to look away.
but still, i was fine. i was tripping like i never had before, but i was in a safe environment, and i felt confident i was fine. i left the bedroom and went into the bedroom next door. there were 3 or 4 kids i didn't know in there, also dosed up on mushrooms. 2 of them were first timers. we sat and talked, it was mostly nonsensical conversation, i certainly wasn't capable of coherent or meaningful speech at the moment. the entire situation got ridiculously funny, as conversations (and all things) tend to do under the influence of mushrooms. before long, we had all been reduced to a bundle of laughing idiots. any time anybody would even try and regain their composure, it would just result in an even harder round of laughter. at this point, something odd happened to all of us. i was laughing so hard i could barely catch a breath and it was actually painful. i was laughing so hard tears formed in my eyes. suddenly i was bawling my eyes out, sobbing like there was no tomorrow. the other 3 were in the process of suffering a similar fate. but, within a couple minutes, i was sobbing so hard it sounded like a laugh, and before i knew it i was laughing hysterically. this went back and forth several times before we all fled the room, convinced it was the problem.
for some reason, it seemed to work. i returned to the room where all of my friends were. a few had departed on walks, to go out and explore. it sounded like a great idea to me, so i gathered a couple people and headed downstairs to the front door. i should have known immediately it wasn't going to happen. as i came down the flight of stairs, into the kegger, i was immediately overwhelmed. people were morphing into each other, and the sounds just made my brain crazier. i made a b-line through the people and out the front door. what happened at the front door was very....odd, for lack of a better word. i made it to the second step outside the door and stopped. "go back inside" was suddenly the only thought in my brain, i could almost see the words written across my vision and hear them being spoken inside my head. wisely, i think, i heeded them. i quickly made my way back upstairs to the safety of the bedroom. it made me uncomfortable thinking i couldn't leave, so i tried the back door. out the bedroom which had caused my fit of laughter/tears there was a door which had fire escape style stairs going down the back. it was darker and calmer back here, i thought perhaps i could get out this way. but, as soon as i began to descend, the same thing happened. "go back inside". i did. so, that was it. i was confined to the other bedroom, it was my only safe place. still, i was ok with this. not happy, but i felt safe. as long as nothing went wrong, i would be fine. i have no concept of time here. i was somewhere in my trip, it was showing no signs of wearing off as yet.
a couple of my friends suggested that we smoke some weed, to "take the edge off". i don't know why i thought it would, i'd smoked while tripping before. they shouldn't have known better, they were both first-timers to mushrooms. but, in my state, it sounded like a good idea. as we smoked, things inside my head just got crazy. similarly, the things around me did too. the walls weren't just melting, they were expanding and contracting, as though they were made out of a putty-like substance. this was the first moment where i felt fear of any sort. but, i curled up into a ball and held a pillow to my chest. for some reason, i felt safe as long as i was small, unobtrusive, as though i could disappear if i needed too. soon after we had finished smoking, my friend whos room it was came in, looking panicked at the very least. he says, "the cops are here, just chill up here and everything will be fine." what had happened was downstairs, the drunks had thrown the tapped keg out the window (which is a good 8 feet up off the street). this, unsurprisingly, drew a lot of unwanted attention, and got the cops called to break up the keg. at this point, paranoia took over. i had some bud on me, i was tripping, and i was trapped. i couldn't leave. i'd already tried to leave with no success. but i was panicked. i got up and ran to the back stairs, hoping i could leave.
but, anybody who has ever been afraid while on mushrooms, knows what happens visually. it was a nightmare outside that door, i was sure i would be killed if i left. i ran back into the room and curled up again. this, is when my trip went bad. i could no longer make out what people were saying, it was all chaotic noise that my brain couldn't comprehend, or process. so, i tried to tell my friends.
i couldn't speak.
my mouth moved, but no sounds came out. occassionally i would make a sound similar to the noises a person makes when they are being choked, gasping for breath. i started to cry, i was scared. i was going to go to jail, at best. they'd come upstairs, they'd search me, they'd take me to jail. i couldn't cry, tears came, but no sounds still. my eyes rna like a river, but i couldn't even make crying sounds. inside my head, i was screaming bloody murder. being completely unable to communicate while tripping is not a fun state. dave (the guy whos room it was) came back in. "the landlord is here, everybody has to leave riht now."
psychosis sets in. now i knew i was done for. completely helpless. my mind raced with all the things i was sorry for, all the things i'd done, hadn't done, done wrong came out. and still, i couldn't say a word. i began to pick myself apart, as fear became self-hate. i started to hate myself for all the things i'd done, the way i was living. it was all a lie. my whole life was a lie, and i just wanted to tell everyone that i was sorry. but i couldn't. this was my punishment. my fear of dying that night went away, i was sure i wasn't going to be that lucky. instead, i was going to remain deaf and mute. i was going to stay crazy, doomed to hate myself and feel sorry for myself, and i wasn't going to get to die. i almost wanted to at that point.
dave saw that i was in a bad state of affairs, and took me away from everybody and everything. all my friends from school went home, having only a vague idea what was going on. they'd seen my tears, and later they told me the look on my face was scaring them really badly, but didn't know the hell i'd thrown myself into.
we sat for i don't know how long in another room. he talked to me, and though i couldn't understand a word he was saying, it helped to have him there. as the sun started to come up, my senses, and sanity began to come back. i remembered i was on drugs (somehow i'd forgotten in my madness) and realized that they were in fact wearing off, i was starting to get all my faculties back. slowly, we went over what had gone on in my head, and why.
as the morning progressed, i started to make sense of it, realizing i'd just been running all week by using drugs. that it was something i needed to deal with, and that there was a lot more to it than breaking up with my girlfriend. i felt i'd been a phony, being who people had wanted me to be.
i don't regard this as a bad trip anymore. it is the most terrified i have ever been in my entire life, i have never felt so trapped, and sure of my impending doom in my life. at the same time, i've never had one night show me so clearly what i was doing wrong, how to live, who i am. and in that sense, it is one of the greatest trips i've ever had.
and thank you q-tip for inspiring me to post this. your post reminded me a lot of this one, though you were outside looking for a safe place to go in, and i was trapped inside, trying to get out.
bc
------------------
bc-
**Proud to be an Official member of the Stuck-Up/8-Up Crew**
"Fuck PLUR! it's all about hardcore ass fucking!!"
We'll make great pets...
"drug suppliers, typically wearing 'Ecko' brand sweat shirts shuffle around the dance floor, chanting softly, 'want some pills? k?'" - Shu Shin Luh, The Chicago Sun-Times
