Putingrad
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2006
- Messages
- 605
I've just recently returned back home to the States after a five month backpacking trip through Europe. The experience was incredible in every possible way, which I won't get into with this report, but I'd like to share a mushroom experience I had in Amsterdam with you all, at around month four. Without further ado...
The experience of walking into a shop on a busy corner of a modern Western city and purchasing a psychedelic was a bizarre one, quite a novelty for a repressed American psyche like mine. It's strange, really...these "smart shops" are all filled with the quasi-psychotropic BS, "legal highs", "herbal XTC", vitamins, nootropics, etc... the whole atmosphere inside is decidedly non-psychedelic. I glance over the "menu" of the different varieties of truffles still available for sale, all of which are rated on a 1 to 5 star scale regarding various attributed: "visuals," "body high", etc. I'm inclinded to believe it's all bullshit of course, psilocybin/psilocin is psilocybin/psilocin after all, but perhaps the differences in alkaloid content can produce a meaningfully different effect, but we have no way of verifiably saying. I purchase 15 grams of fresh Psilocybe Mexicana truffles for a pricey 15 Euros. They are given to me in a factory-sealed plastic container, covered with label, ingredient and warning stickers, all written in block text, lending the container the appearance of being like any old over-the-counter medication container. It comes with a booklet as well (complete with an anthropomorphic, blue, Disneyesque, pig-like creature on the cover proclaiming "Mr. Truffles says: read me first!"), detailing just about everything you'd like to know about mushrooms and their method of action. As if I had just purchased a digital camera or iPod or something, the whole presentation reminded me of. In one way, I think this is exactly how drugs should be treated in society... in another way, it certainly does take a bit of the thrill and the mystique out of it. Although when I first started using drugs I would avidly read Erowid, bluelight, and other resources, there was always an element of the unknown and the mysterious in it all... "well, guess there's nothing to do but eat it and find out!" I'm accustomed to drugs, psychedelics in particular, acting as an artifact and a meme of sorts within youth and alternative culture, spoken of in hushed, eager whispers, not always readily attainable... not something that any random, quite possibly ignorant person with 15 Euros in their hand can just go into a store and buy. In any case, the novelty of being able to make that transaction completely legally, with impunity, in a well-regulated setting was pretty fucking cool. I hold on to them in anticipation for the next sunny day.
That sunny day eventually comes, the first in Amsterdam that entire week. Thankfully, the weather forecasts had proven themselves correct, for I had been waiting the whole week for this sunny day to indulge in a bit of Amsterdam's famed semi-legal mushroom trade. A couple years back mushrooms themselves were banned, but through a loophole in the verbage of the law, the sclerotia (commonly known as 'truffles', 'magic truffles') is still widely sold. I had been looking forward to trying them, as I am very familiar with mushrooms but had not yet eaten the sclerotia.
I set out at about 11:30 A.M., the sun bright and adding some warmth to an otherwise chilly October day. I put some good music into my ears to get pumped up for the day, while waiting for and eventually catching the tram to take me downtown to the vicinty of where I want most of this trip to take place: the Van Gogh museum! Ever since I was little I can remember being enthralled by Van Gogh, who has always been one of my favorite artists. I can remember being young and flipping through an artbook on him my parents gave me at one point, and gaining from his paintings some feeling about the scale of life, of being human, things I couldn't quite yet understand but could very much sense. Those paintings of his always have had a special place in my life. And now here I was in Europe, in Amsterdam, and the Van Gogh Museum was beckoning me, and what better way to augment what was already going to be a profound experience than with some psychedelia? It had been awhile since I had tripped alone, and although I was staying with some people through couchsurfing.com, I was backpacking alone and I wanted this trip to be a solo one, just me and my mind, me and Van Gogh.
I get off the tram by the museum, and walk a few blocks away over to Vondelpark, the city's main park, where I intend to begin the day. I'm feeling great! The sun is out, I've been travelling Europe for four months now, I feel happier and stronger than I have in years at this period in my life. Truly, life is good. I walk through the park and eventually find a suitable spot by a pond of sorts where I can eat them in relative peace. I'm admiring the bicyclists, pedestrians, families, kids playing on this sunny day, picturesque trappings of these high quality of life, civilized, simply functional and liberated Northern European cities. Wonderful. I take a seat on a bench by the pond, and get my bottle of water, mushrooms, and peanut butter and honey sandwich (a tradition for me, I always consume mushrooms this way) out. Here we go. I take my first bite, not knowing what to expect... wow! Nothing like mushrooms at all, which I find absolutely disgusting, hence the peanut butter sandwich tradition. It's actually almost GOOD, even... closer to a nut than anything else, with a pasty/liquidy substance that striates through the center. The paste has a very strong, somewhat citrusy taste, with a powerful aftertaste that lingers for quite awhile. Like nothing I've ever tasted before, that's for sure.
I eat the 15 grams fresh pretty slowly, taking my time, enjoying the day and people-watching. This is equivalent of around 3 grams of plain old, dry, normal mushrooms, a dose and headspace I am very experienced and familiar with, and perfectly comfortable with alone. Nothing too tame, nor too crazy seeing as I am alone and psychedelics are always unpredictable.
After around 40 minutes I begin to feel the familiar tingling in the peripheral of my body and the front of my head, always the first indicator to me that I'm off baseline with mushrooms. A few more minutes and I start to get the giggles, always my second indicator that I'm off baseline. I watch a man playing with his dog, repeatedly throwing a stick into the pond and the dog, with unbridled enthusiasm, always charging in after it. I find the eagerness of the dog and it's movements funny. I imagine myself walking into the Van Gogh museum in a little while, and the whole scene strikes me as hilarious for some reason. I imagine if someone just randomly walked up to me (looking a bit unkempt and backpackerish), and asked me what my deal is... "Well, I'm an American, staying at this squat in the southeast of the city... oh, and I'm tripping mushrooms right now." Hahahaha. This giggle phase is always too short-lived, quickly giving way too the intense contemplation of a strong mushroom intoxication. So far, nothing is dissimilar from what mushrooms typically do for me.
The come up is very "silent", hardly visual at all, an incredibly calm state really, calmer than mushrooms typically are for me. 30 minutes after the ininital off baseline, without even having really felt a ramping up, I realize that I'm profoundly intoxicated... "tripping" as we say
I decide to head off towards the museum. I navigate through the melange of cars, trucks, people, traffic signals... stop, GO, stop, go, STOP... ok, go! I feel as if I'm on an invisible rail of some sort leading me to my destination of the museum... as long as I do exactly what the little green and red traffic men tell me to, I won't have a tragically early end to my voyage... I emerge at last from this seemingly guided state into the large open space in front of Amsterdam's museum district. Goddamn, I am peaking... and I must look pretty funny to sober eyes around me, waddling and staring as I am, unnaturally indecisive as to where exactly on this grass I should sit for a moment. I finally pick a spot, it was all the same so why choosing a spot was so difficult I have no idea, and sit down, munch on an apple and listen to Shpongle, entranced... tripping in the middle of a city this size is a new experience for me I realize, and my mind is analyzing the layout and planning that went into the few city blocks that are around me. The mushroom paralysis sets in, something I always fail to not account for, and I think I spend a good hour there, lost in thought, peaking. At some point in the seemingly unbreakable, rapid stream of mushroom thoughts I realize that I really should summon the willpower to get up and moving, these things always have a pretty short duration for me after all, and I want to be firmly psychedelicized for at least a couple hours in there. Wresting myself from the paralysis, I stand up... yeah, that feels weird... ok, nothing to do but start walking I suppose. A bit of anxiety sets in during the walk, as I'm peaking alone in a sea of people, surrounded by concrete. I get into the ticket line, quite short thankfully. I get some paranoid thoughts of possibly being questioned or something, but quickly realize that those thoughts are illogical, in all places AMSTERDAM, where people don't give a fuck.
Alright, the security check and into the museum... wow, a museum consiting solely of Van Goghs, I can't wait! It's very crowded too: Japanese tourists, businessmen on lunch break, little blond Dutch schoolchildren on their field trip, going to see what the Netherlands' favorite son left for the world. All types of people, really... and then there's me of course. Into the first room, there's the early works, 'The Potato Eaters' catches my eye. Goddamn, there it is alright.
You can see the progression throughout the exhibit, very well-curated... a more realistic style and darker tones gradually giving way into the thicker, swirling paints, bright vivid colors, a more refined post-impressionist/expressionist style. Despite a weaker visual element to this trip than is typical with mushrooms for me, the already-psychedelic Van Goghs are imbued with a special brightness and movement here, and even better these are the REAL things, right in front of me! I am on the verge of tears as I recall what I would feel as a child, looking at these same paintings in a book. I think of all the emotions and joys these works have given to humanity, rich in the beauty and symbolism of life as they are. I think of where I am right now, travelling through Europe, something that has been a dream of mine for so long. I think of where I am heading in my life, all these thoughts being eased along and narrated by masterpiece after masterpiece in front of me. The 'Orchard' series, 'Sunflowers', 'Bedroom'... so amazing, so powerful. I can feel a couple of tears gently rolling down my cheeks. What a special moment this is right now.
Many of the works are accompanied by translated captioning taken from the prolific letters the man wrote to friends and family, his way with words almost as astonishing as the visual feasts he produced. It occurs to me how special artists and writers are to humanity, and how wonderful it is that people like Van Gogh exist in this world.
All too abruptly, as we all know, his insanity sets in and the works become progressively darker, save for the anachronistic 'Irises' and 'Portrait of Dr. Gachet'.
And then, both he and it are done, at only 37 years old, suicide. I dawdle for some time, backtracking to see once more my favorites, taking my time in front of many, and then the museum closes at 4. I shuffle out along with many other people, rapidly coming down at this point, and exit out into a city once again cloudy and cold. I make my way back, feeling quite exhausted but with a smile on my face. A truly special and wonderful trip.
I think about myself right now, this stage in my life, how lucky I am and how much I love being alive... young and blossoming into the infinity, just as Van Gogh's almond tree...
Thanks for reading everyone.
substancecode_mushrooms
The experience of walking into a shop on a busy corner of a modern Western city and purchasing a psychedelic was a bizarre one, quite a novelty for a repressed American psyche like mine. It's strange, really...these "smart shops" are all filled with the quasi-psychotropic BS, "legal highs", "herbal XTC", vitamins, nootropics, etc... the whole atmosphere inside is decidedly non-psychedelic. I glance over the "menu" of the different varieties of truffles still available for sale, all of which are rated on a 1 to 5 star scale regarding various attributed: "visuals," "body high", etc. I'm inclinded to believe it's all bullshit of course, psilocybin/psilocin is psilocybin/psilocin after all, but perhaps the differences in alkaloid content can produce a meaningfully different effect, but we have no way of verifiably saying. I purchase 15 grams of fresh Psilocybe Mexicana truffles for a pricey 15 Euros. They are given to me in a factory-sealed plastic container, covered with label, ingredient and warning stickers, all written in block text, lending the container the appearance of being like any old over-the-counter medication container. It comes with a booklet as well (complete with an anthropomorphic, blue, Disneyesque, pig-like creature on the cover proclaiming "Mr. Truffles says: read me first!"), detailing just about everything you'd like to know about mushrooms and their method of action. As if I had just purchased a digital camera or iPod or something, the whole presentation reminded me of. In one way, I think this is exactly how drugs should be treated in society... in another way, it certainly does take a bit of the thrill and the mystique out of it. Although when I first started using drugs I would avidly read Erowid, bluelight, and other resources, there was always an element of the unknown and the mysterious in it all... "well, guess there's nothing to do but eat it and find out!" I'm accustomed to drugs, psychedelics in particular, acting as an artifact and a meme of sorts within youth and alternative culture, spoken of in hushed, eager whispers, not always readily attainable... not something that any random, quite possibly ignorant person with 15 Euros in their hand can just go into a store and buy. In any case, the novelty of being able to make that transaction completely legally, with impunity, in a well-regulated setting was pretty fucking cool. I hold on to them in anticipation for the next sunny day.
That sunny day eventually comes, the first in Amsterdam that entire week. Thankfully, the weather forecasts had proven themselves correct, for I had been waiting the whole week for this sunny day to indulge in a bit of Amsterdam's famed semi-legal mushroom trade. A couple years back mushrooms themselves were banned, but through a loophole in the verbage of the law, the sclerotia (commonly known as 'truffles', 'magic truffles') is still widely sold. I had been looking forward to trying them, as I am very familiar with mushrooms but had not yet eaten the sclerotia.
I set out at about 11:30 A.M., the sun bright and adding some warmth to an otherwise chilly October day. I put some good music into my ears to get pumped up for the day, while waiting for and eventually catching the tram to take me downtown to the vicinty of where I want most of this trip to take place: the Van Gogh museum! Ever since I was little I can remember being enthralled by Van Gogh, who has always been one of my favorite artists. I can remember being young and flipping through an artbook on him my parents gave me at one point, and gaining from his paintings some feeling about the scale of life, of being human, things I couldn't quite yet understand but could very much sense. Those paintings of his always have had a special place in my life. And now here I was in Europe, in Amsterdam, and the Van Gogh Museum was beckoning me, and what better way to augment what was already going to be a profound experience than with some psychedelia? It had been awhile since I had tripped alone, and although I was staying with some people through couchsurfing.com, I was backpacking alone and I wanted this trip to be a solo one, just me and my mind, me and Van Gogh.
I get off the tram by the museum, and walk a few blocks away over to Vondelpark, the city's main park, where I intend to begin the day. I'm feeling great! The sun is out, I've been travelling Europe for four months now, I feel happier and stronger than I have in years at this period in my life. Truly, life is good. I walk through the park and eventually find a suitable spot by a pond of sorts where I can eat them in relative peace. I'm admiring the bicyclists, pedestrians, families, kids playing on this sunny day, picturesque trappings of these high quality of life, civilized, simply functional and liberated Northern European cities. Wonderful. I take a seat on a bench by the pond, and get my bottle of water, mushrooms, and peanut butter and honey sandwich (a tradition for me, I always consume mushrooms this way) out. Here we go. I take my first bite, not knowing what to expect... wow! Nothing like mushrooms at all, which I find absolutely disgusting, hence the peanut butter sandwich tradition. It's actually almost GOOD, even... closer to a nut than anything else, with a pasty/liquidy substance that striates through the center. The paste has a very strong, somewhat citrusy taste, with a powerful aftertaste that lingers for quite awhile. Like nothing I've ever tasted before, that's for sure.
I eat the 15 grams fresh pretty slowly, taking my time, enjoying the day and people-watching. This is equivalent of around 3 grams of plain old, dry, normal mushrooms, a dose and headspace I am very experienced and familiar with, and perfectly comfortable with alone. Nothing too tame, nor too crazy seeing as I am alone and psychedelics are always unpredictable.
After around 40 minutes I begin to feel the familiar tingling in the peripheral of my body and the front of my head, always the first indicator to me that I'm off baseline with mushrooms. A few more minutes and I start to get the giggles, always my second indicator that I'm off baseline. I watch a man playing with his dog, repeatedly throwing a stick into the pond and the dog, with unbridled enthusiasm, always charging in after it. I find the eagerness of the dog and it's movements funny. I imagine myself walking into the Van Gogh museum in a little while, and the whole scene strikes me as hilarious for some reason. I imagine if someone just randomly walked up to me (looking a bit unkempt and backpackerish), and asked me what my deal is... "Well, I'm an American, staying at this squat in the southeast of the city... oh, and I'm tripping mushrooms right now." Hahahaha. This giggle phase is always too short-lived, quickly giving way too the intense contemplation of a strong mushroom intoxication. So far, nothing is dissimilar from what mushrooms typically do for me.
The come up is very "silent", hardly visual at all, an incredibly calm state really, calmer than mushrooms typically are for me. 30 minutes after the ininital off baseline, without even having really felt a ramping up, I realize that I'm profoundly intoxicated... "tripping" as we say
I decide to head off towards the museum. I navigate through the melange of cars, trucks, people, traffic signals... stop, GO, stop, go, STOP... ok, go! I feel as if I'm on an invisible rail of some sort leading me to my destination of the museum... as long as I do exactly what the little green and red traffic men tell me to, I won't have a tragically early end to my voyage... I emerge at last from this seemingly guided state into the large open space in front of Amsterdam's museum district. Goddamn, I am peaking... and I must look pretty funny to sober eyes around me, waddling and staring as I am, unnaturally indecisive as to where exactly on this grass I should sit for a moment. I finally pick a spot, it was all the same so why choosing a spot was so difficult I have no idea, and sit down, munch on an apple and listen to Shpongle, entranced... tripping in the middle of a city this size is a new experience for me I realize, and my mind is analyzing the layout and planning that went into the few city blocks that are around me. The mushroom paralysis sets in, something I always fail to not account for, and I think I spend a good hour there, lost in thought, peaking. At some point in the seemingly unbreakable, rapid stream of mushroom thoughts I realize that I really should summon the willpower to get up and moving, these things always have a pretty short duration for me after all, and I want to be firmly psychedelicized for at least a couple hours in there. Wresting myself from the paralysis, I stand up... yeah, that feels weird... ok, nothing to do but start walking I suppose. A bit of anxiety sets in during the walk, as I'm peaking alone in a sea of people, surrounded by concrete. I get into the ticket line, quite short thankfully. I get some paranoid thoughts of possibly being questioned or something, but quickly realize that those thoughts are illogical, in all places AMSTERDAM, where people don't give a fuck.
Alright, the security check and into the museum... wow, a museum consiting solely of Van Goghs, I can't wait! It's very crowded too: Japanese tourists, businessmen on lunch break, little blond Dutch schoolchildren on their field trip, going to see what the Netherlands' favorite son left for the world. All types of people, really... and then there's me of course. Into the first room, there's the early works, 'The Potato Eaters' catches my eye. Goddamn, there it is alright.
You can see the progression throughout the exhibit, very well-curated... a more realistic style and darker tones gradually giving way into the thicker, swirling paints, bright vivid colors, a more refined post-impressionist/expressionist style. Despite a weaker visual element to this trip than is typical with mushrooms for me, the already-psychedelic Van Goghs are imbued with a special brightness and movement here, and even better these are the REAL things, right in front of me! I am on the verge of tears as I recall what I would feel as a child, looking at these same paintings in a book. I think of all the emotions and joys these works have given to humanity, rich in the beauty and symbolism of life as they are. I think of where I am right now, travelling through Europe, something that has been a dream of mine for so long. I think of where I am heading in my life, all these thoughts being eased along and narrated by masterpiece after masterpiece in front of me. The 'Orchard' series, 'Sunflowers', 'Bedroom'... so amazing, so powerful. I can feel a couple of tears gently rolling down my cheeks. What a special moment this is right now.
Many of the works are accompanied by translated captioning taken from the prolific letters the man wrote to friends and family, his way with words almost as astonishing as the visual feasts he produced. It occurs to me how special artists and writers are to humanity, and how wonderful it is that people like Van Gogh exist in this world.
All too abruptly, as we all know, his insanity sets in and the works become progressively darker, save for the anachronistic 'Irises' and 'Portrait of Dr. Gachet'.
And then, both he and it are done, at only 37 years old, suicide. I dawdle for some time, backtracking to see once more my favorites, taking my time in front of many, and then the museum closes at 4. I shuffle out along with many other people, rapidly coming down at this point, and exit out into a city once again cloudy and cold. I make my way back, feeling quite exhausted but with a smile on my face. A truly special and wonderful trip.
I think about myself right now, this stage in my life, how lucky I am and how much I love being alive... young and blossoming into the infinity, just as Van Gogh's almond tree...
Thanks for reading everyone.
substancecode_mushrooms
Last edited by a moderator:
