Introduction & preparations
On a normal Tuesday (1st of November 2005) after just taking an exam, and a couple beers, I find myself in the train back home together with one of my friends; M. Only in the train for a couple minutes we start talking about shrooms. We still had a bad feeling about our carefully planned but failed LSD trip (the blotters turned out doing nothing) of a couple days earlier. My joke “lets do shrooms today!” ended up quite serious when M replied “sure, why not”.
While we transfer at the next station to head back for Amsterdam and make our way to the closest smart shop I still could not see us taking mushrooms on this normal weekday. Not more than 30 minutes later, we are sitting in the Burger Kind and I am about to take a bite from my custom-made hamburger. The hamburger goes down much more easily than I had expected; barely tasting the mushrooms (we split a pack of Hawaiian shrooms between the two of us).
While it is already getting dark outside, we hit the streets and head for the red light district. Not for the prostitutes; in fact, for everything except the prostitutes. We walk through a narrow alley and I start getting the first visuals; a big spot on the wall seem to melting down the wall. My first trip has started. Windows started melting in each other and churches also offered some fun hallucinations. While I was looking my eyes out at a certain church-like building, some tourists that passed by took their cameras out and started making pictures of what I was looking at. Obviously they had no clue that I was looking at something completely different. We continued our way with a big smile on our faces.
Smoking a joint
We decide to smoke the hash joint that we prepared earlier in the BK. M lights it up and after a couple of drags he hands it over to me. Receiving the joint already was a challenge - let alone actually inhaling the THC. My body seemed different; where did this arm actually come from? Focusing a bit harder did the job and so I successfully took a couple drags myself, which actually did not taste nice at all. The joint kicks in rather hard and I felt the need to sit down for a moment. A ‘seat’ was found on the dirty pavement… I did not care and needed a moment for myself. I close my eyes and put my hands in front of my eyes and completely surrender myself to the feeling, not having any other option anyway.
Patterns and colors quickly start forming people and after a couple of minutes I realize I am seeing a certain scene which seemed rather realistic. It took me a bit to understand what I was seeing, and although I did realize all of this was caused by the drugs that I took, I kept on seeing these images. Images of a scene in which I was sitting (which I was), somehow on a road with those typical apartments/houses of Amsterdam surrounding it. People were coming towards me from everywhere and although I could not see their mouths moving, I heard a lot of whispering, as if they were talking about me. I decide to open my eyes and look around; there are barely people on the street and nobody is paying attention at us… I notice M is smoking a cigarette and ask myself how he feels and what he sees. I decide not to ask and close my eyes again. I still see the same scene; am I having a bad trip? I don’t think about it and just let it go. I see people opening doors and come outside; I even see cops getting out of their squad car that is parked in the street. The basic picture of the street stayed; the things happening in the street changed all the time, but slowly. I try to focus more carefully and see, standing with hands in the side – having a very confident look… myself? It was kind of like I was being judged by my inner self. I am still very fascinated by this intense experience (caused by the joint?) and I think I will remember this forever.
Things where not over yet though; far from that. I got myself together, stood up and so we continued our way. After another walk through the red light district, M came up with the suggestion to go home. This suggestion came to me almost as news from heaven; I had lost the whole realization that we could just go home.
Heading back home
First I wanted to get something to drink; the McDonalds that we passed seemed like a good place to get a nice soda. Upon entering we immediately discovered it sounded a lot more easier than it actually was. The sounds from cash registers, kitchen devices, talking (although there were barely any customers) and all the visual impressions kind of overwhelmed both me and M. Somehow we did manage to walk out with two sodas. Sadly enough the soda tasted far from as what I expected it to taste; bah! I could almost even throw it away. What now? M reminds me that we were heading for the station and going home… I already had forgot about it again. I do take the soda with me while we head for the station… having no clue what we were going to bring ourselves into.
The very second we step a foot inside the crowded Amsterdam CS (Central Station), I am overwhelmed by all the sounds coming from every single direction. It was almost like the station was being flooded with sounds and that if we would not get out soon enough, we would drown in this sea of sounds. Quickly I head towards the usual platform. But what is this? No departure times of the trains are being shown on the signs? Odd, normally there are always departure times of the trains. The sounds and other impressions in the station were still kind of hard to deal with so I decide to care about the train later and go up to one of the tracks and find myself a seat. Luckily M follows and takes a seat next to me. The station seemed deserted; no trains arriving and leaving whatsoever and there were barely any people walking over the platforms. It kind of seemed like Stephen King’s ‘The Langoliers’. Although I felt I could think somewhat clearly, this situation really did feel odd. Was it part of the trip? Unlikely, I thought. Some paint drops on the floor decide to start messing with us big time; jumping all around the floor and even onto my jeans. Looking at it makes me feel weird so I try to look forward, still trying to figure out why there is no activity at the station at all. Then the speaker sounds and informs us that the police is not allowing the trains to ride. Knowing that we could get home by taking the train from a different train station we head for the metro station under Amsterdam CS.
Is that my brother or am I seeing things? It surely does look like him. He seems to be on the phone and I decide not to take any risks and walk a bit further down the platform. The metro happens to be quite full with people just coming from their work and just when I thought I had found a nice seat, M urges me not to sit there as someone had puked. Although I see or smell absolutely nothing, I decide to stand. Some other people do get seated and thus we are forced to stand while the metro leaves the station. A station or two later I decide to get out because I really felt the need to sit. While we wait for the next metro to arrive, I look around the station, which seems endlessly long. Luckily, the next metro arrives quickly and is a whole lot less packed. We find a seat in the back of the metro, which is covered by a lot of graffiti paintings. Entertained by the living and melting paintings in the metro we arrive at our stop soon enough. We get out the metro quickly, run for the train and, unlike some other people that were in our metro, we make it.
Finally we are in the train that is going to bring us straight home. Unfortunately the train is fully packed with people as well. Although I do notice the effects have gotten less intense, I still feel the need to sit and head into the compartment to find myself a seat. People heading home after work are sitting everywhere around me but then again, it was not like we did not meet any sober people on our journey yet so I couldn’t care less… after all, I was glad to have found a seat. The patterns on the floor seemed to be moving around as snakes, entertaining me well while the train is bringing us home.
Ending
This time I am not the one needing a break with some fresh air but M; he decides to get off the train early and I obviously decide to follow him. The train leaves without us and I remember there is a nice park right next to the station that we could go to. No more hordes of sober people, no more getting lost in sounds coming from everywhere and nowhere, no more trains and no more metros. Just us, and mother nature; quite a different setting. We conclude our trip by talking about what a hectic but cool trip we had while looking at clouds quickly changing shape into different cool figures and stars moving through the sky. After another joint and a look at my previous home, which was close by anyway, we get into the bus... soon to part our ways. When I arrive back home, all effects have completely worn off and I am greatful to have gained a wonderful experience.
On a normal Tuesday (1st of November 2005) after just taking an exam, and a couple beers, I find myself in the train back home together with one of my friends; M. Only in the train for a couple minutes we start talking about shrooms. We still had a bad feeling about our carefully planned but failed LSD trip (the blotters turned out doing nothing) of a couple days earlier. My joke “lets do shrooms today!” ended up quite serious when M replied “sure, why not”.
While we transfer at the next station to head back for Amsterdam and make our way to the closest smart shop I still could not see us taking mushrooms on this normal weekday. Not more than 30 minutes later, we are sitting in the Burger Kind and I am about to take a bite from my custom-made hamburger. The hamburger goes down much more easily than I had expected; barely tasting the mushrooms (we split a pack of Hawaiian shrooms between the two of us).
While it is already getting dark outside, we hit the streets and head for the red light district. Not for the prostitutes; in fact, for everything except the prostitutes. We walk through a narrow alley and I start getting the first visuals; a big spot on the wall seem to melting down the wall. My first trip has started. Windows started melting in each other and churches also offered some fun hallucinations. While I was looking my eyes out at a certain church-like building, some tourists that passed by took their cameras out and started making pictures of what I was looking at. Obviously they had no clue that I was looking at something completely different. We continued our way with a big smile on our faces.
Smoking a joint
We decide to smoke the hash joint that we prepared earlier in the BK. M lights it up and after a couple of drags he hands it over to me. Receiving the joint already was a challenge - let alone actually inhaling the THC. My body seemed different; where did this arm actually come from? Focusing a bit harder did the job and so I successfully took a couple drags myself, which actually did not taste nice at all. The joint kicks in rather hard and I felt the need to sit down for a moment. A ‘seat’ was found on the dirty pavement… I did not care and needed a moment for myself. I close my eyes and put my hands in front of my eyes and completely surrender myself to the feeling, not having any other option anyway.
Patterns and colors quickly start forming people and after a couple of minutes I realize I am seeing a certain scene which seemed rather realistic. It took me a bit to understand what I was seeing, and although I did realize all of this was caused by the drugs that I took, I kept on seeing these images. Images of a scene in which I was sitting (which I was), somehow on a road with those typical apartments/houses of Amsterdam surrounding it. People were coming towards me from everywhere and although I could not see their mouths moving, I heard a lot of whispering, as if they were talking about me. I decide to open my eyes and look around; there are barely people on the street and nobody is paying attention at us… I notice M is smoking a cigarette and ask myself how he feels and what he sees. I decide not to ask and close my eyes again. I still see the same scene; am I having a bad trip? I don’t think about it and just let it go. I see people opening doors and come outside; I even see cops getting out of their squad car that is parked in the street. The basic picture of the street stayed; the things happening in the street changed all the time, but slowly. I try to focus more carefully and see, standing with hands in the side – having a very confident look… myself? It was kind of like I was being judged by my inner self. I am still very fascinated by this intense experience (caused by the joint?) and I think I will remember this forever.
Things where not over yet though; far from that. I got myself together, stood up and so we continued our way. After another walk through the red light district, M came up with the suggestion to go home. This suggestion came to me almost as news from heaven; I had lost the whole realization that we could just go home.
Heading back home
First I wanted to get something to drink; the McDonalds that we passed seemed like a good place to get a nice soda. Upon entering we immediately discovered it sounded a lot more easier than it actually was. The sounds from cash registers, kitchen devices, talking (although there were barely any customers) and all the visual impressions kind of overwhelmed both me and M. Somehow we did manage to walk out with two sodas. Sadly enough the soda tasted far from as what I expected it to taste; bah! I could almost even throw it away. What now? M reminds me that we were heading for the station and going home… I already had forgot about it again. I do take the soda with me while we head for the station… having no clue what we were going to bring ourselves into.
The very second we step a foot inside the crowded Amsterdam CS (Central Station), I am overwhelmed by all the sounds coming from every single direction. It was almost like the station was being flooded with sounds and that if we would not get out soon enough, we would drown in this sea of sounds. Quickly I head towards the usual platform. But what is this? No departure times of the trains are being shown on the signs? Odd, normally there are always departure times of the trains. The sounds and other impressions in the station were still kind of hard to deal with so I decide to care about the train later and go up to one of the tracks and find myself a seat. Luckily M follows and takes a seat next to me. The station seemed deserted; no trains arriving and leaving whatsoever and there were barely any people walking over the platforms. It kind of seemed like Stephen King’s ‘The Langoliers’. Although I felt I could think somewhat clearly, this situation really did feel odd. Was it part of the trip? Unlikely, I thought. Some paint drops on the floor decide to start messing with us big time; jumping all around the floor and even onto my jeans. Looking at it makes me feel weird so I try to look forward, still trying to figure out why there is no activity at the station at all. Then the speaker sounds and informs us that the police is not allowing the trains to ride. Knowing that we could get home by taking the train from a different train station we head for the metro station under Amsterdam CS.
Is that my brother or am I seeing things? It surely does look like him. He seems to be on the phone and I decide not to take any risks and walk a bit further down the platform. The metro happens to be quite full with people just coming from their work and just when I thought I had found a nice seat, M urges me not to sit there as someone had puked. Although I see or smell absolutely nothing, I decide to stand. Some other people do get seated and thus we are forced to stand while the metro leaves the station. A station or two later I decide to get out because I really felt the need to sit. While we wait for the next metro to arrive, I look around the station, which seems endlessly long. Luckily, the next metro arrives quickly and is a whole lot less packed. We find a seat in the back of the metro, which is covered by a lot of graffiti paintings. Entertained by the living and melting paintings in the metro we arrive at our stop soon enough. We get out the metro quickly, run for the train and, unlike some other people that were in our metro, we make it.
Finally we are in the train that is going to bring us straight home. Unfortunately the train is fully packed with people as well. Although I do notice the effects have gotten less intense, I still feel the need to sit and head into the compartment to find myself a seat. People heading home after work are sitting everywhere around me but then again, it was not like we did not meet any sober people on our journey yet so I couldn’t care less… after all, I was glad to have found a seat. The patterns on the floor seemed to be moving around as snakes, entertaining me well while the train is bringing us home.
Ending
This time I am not the one needing a break with some fresh air but M; he decides to get off the train early and I obviously decide to follow him. The train leaves without us and I remember there is a nice park right next to the station that we could go to. No more hordes of sober people, no more getting lost in sounds coming from everywhere and nowhere, no more trains and no more metros. Just us, and mother nature; quite a different setting. We conclude our trip by talking about what a hectic but cool trip we had while looking at clouds quickly changing shape into different cool figures and stars moving through the sky. After another joint and a look at my previous home, which was close by anyway, we get into the bus... soon to part our ways. When I arrive back home, all effects have completely worn off and I am greatful to have gained a wonderful experience.
