Strawberry Fields Forever: My Trip on Mushrooms

Do you ever wonder what it's like to do mushrooms?
If you don't then you probably already tried them.

I wondered. I wanted to know what it was like. So I tried. The following is the best I can recall of my feelings, thoughts and actions on my trip.

The Introduction

First off, the ingestion. I was told they tasted like shit. It wasn't so bad. They didn't taste good, but I wasn't puking either. I ate a stem, I think. It was really chewy. Not in a gummy bear way, but in a way I imagine really soft bark mulch would be to chew. The taste lingered for a while, but I had brought a bottle of water with us, (we ate them outside) so I kept them down.

The Rising Action

Waiting for the effects to hit was odd. I think I was so anxious for the drug to hit that I thought even the slightest oddity was a 'vision'. I think it took about 45 minutes before what I was feeling was actually altered by the drug. The first thing I noticed was the air. It felt immediately cooler and seemed to feel it's way through each strand of my hair, right to my scalp. Walking home, the shadows all seemed elongated. The road slowly stretched on farther and farther. Finally we made it home, and about five minutes later I realized that the air and the shadows had only been a tease of the trip I was about to go on.

The Climax

The trip itself was like nothing I had experienced before. You hear people talk about crazy things like fighting rainbows, talking walls and singing clocks, but you don't know it 'til you see it. I was with two friends,  Nick* and Dustin*. I was sitting on the couch and Nick was in the bathroom. I heard him say, "The floor is moving!" and I knew we were going to trip hard. I laughed. He came out and lay on the bed and we all sat in silence for a little while saying nothing, but letting the mushrooms gain a deeper hold on us. 

I looked at my friend on the bed, and realized he was seeing something above him. Not day dreaming, or gazing lazily, but full on seeing something that wasn't there. When I asked what he was doing, he said "What?.. Oh, you made it leave."

I asked, "Made what leave?"

"The face on the ceiling," and he smiled, a dark, devious smile. The kind of smile twisted impossibly with both fear and happiness. Like the one Donnie Darko gets when he's trying to stab the eye of Frank. And Nick whispered to his unseen face, "I liked it."

And that's it, that's when my trip started going downhill. When it turned from an odd adventure into the scariest hours of my life.

I saw Nick, saw where he was looking, but couldn't see what he was looking at. I realized that we had been slowly slipping into our own worlds, and there was no coming out. No way to explain what each of us was seeing. I was scared, I was absolutely horrified. I was lost to the drug and it gave no hint of letting up. So I lay there, seeing what I was told I would see. The windows were morphing, stretching and expanding. The ceiling was pressing down on me then shooting up to the sky. And the one thing I could not stop looking at was the wall next to me. 

It had grease marks on it from human hands, and the way the natural oils caught the light, it sparkled with the intensity of a thousand diamonds. The marks moved and came together to form the shapes of people. People with long delicate limbs, and tall slim torsos. People without faces, people who danced. These slender shimmering sprites moved to a music unheard, but if I listened hard enough I could hear the faint tinkling of bells, and the tiny footsteps of a handful of joyous fairies. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

And I started to cry. 

I knew they weren't real, I knew nothing I saw could physically harm me, but it didn't matter. Because I was trapped. I was totally out of control. I was stuck in a place where my mind was moving a mile a minute, but my body wasn't moving at all. It wasn't that what I was seeing was especially terrifying, it was the fact that I was seeing it alone, and couldn't stop it. It's like a waking dream that you have no control over. The drug is a strong virus, that infiltrates your mind and plays with it. Plucking at the strings of your imagination and fear. Showing you a magical world that doesn't exist. A very wonderful prison, but you're trapped nonetheless.

Nick saw my tears and came to comfort me. He asked what was wrong and I tried to explain myself. But it was hard to concentrate. The shadow of the decorative birdcage had drawn out long and ominous on the wall, and a big black crow stared out at me with hungry eyes. I closed my eyes and tried to think. 'Nick wants to know my problem... What is my problem?' So I told him about my loss of self control, but for all his comfort I knew he was still on his own trip. So I laid on the couch, trying to forget his haunting smile at the ceiling, while the guys went for a smoke. 

When they came back they sat with me as I cried. I remember repeating, "I don't like it, I hate it, I just want it to stop." Over and over again. I saw the clock on the microwave, and begged the digital numbers to move faster, so I could escape the hallucinogenic dungeon. Nick talked with Dustin. The more they talked the better I felt. Because that way I didn't feel so alone. If I could hear them, I knew I was with them. Until I kept getting dragged back into myself.

I glanced at the clock. 2:01 AM. My emotions were torn. I would laugh then cry, then laugh then cry. I said to Nick, "I'm sorry, I can feel my face changing emotion all the time. I don't mean to keep smiling then crying." Nick turned to me confused. "But you're not changing at all. You've been crying this entire time."

At this point I stopped. I didn't know what to say. I was sure I'd been switching emotions over the past ten minutes. I looked at the microwave, 2:01 AM. Not even a minute had passed. It was all in my mind. This just heightened the sense that my actual being was separated from my physical body. I shuddered and went back to crying -no wait- continued to cry, since I had never stopped. 

I listened to Nick and Dustin talk. At the slightest lull in conversation I jumped in, begging them to keep speaking. 

Now, I couldn't tell you a thing they said, but I feel like their words were the only things that kept me sane.

Denouement

After what felt like years, but had only been about 15 minutes, Nick said, "I'm coming out of it. You'll be ok." This was the greatest thing I had ever heard. As I lay, I was teetering on the precipice of overwhelmed sadness, but if I ever felt myself slipping, I'd prod Nick to make sure he was still 'coming out of it'. After another hour of this, I realized I was actually calm enough to sit up a bit. I joined in the conversation here and there. As long as I didn't think about Nick and the ceiling face, or my sense of impending doom and the fear of being at the mercy of my own mind forever, I was ok.

Slowly I calmed enough for us to do something. I had begged the boys not to go for a walk earlier. I knew they would have walked for hours and hours, and I'd have been left alone. So they stayed, and now I was well enough along to recovery that they hooked up the gamecube and played some good 'ol super smash bros. I laid on the bed and watched, feeling the mattress and covers swallow me whole. But no longer was I scared. I still feared what had happened, but I knew it was ending. So we turned off the game and went to bed. I slowly fell asleep to Supersmash Brothers playing out on the wall beside me. 

So that was my trip. Yes I had a bad one, no I don't think I'll be doing shrooms again. My mind is a complex enough place when I'm sober, I don't need drugs to enhance my life. They only feed my mind with fear. I can still remember everything I saw on my trip, just not the conversations. I know now that Nick and had not actually been coming off the drug when he said it. But I'm grateful for it. He tells me he felt terrible for lying but he wanted to do anything to help make my bad trip better. And it had.

Though it was a terrible experience, I did learn a lot about myself after that night, and I don't regret doing it.

So if you've ever wondered what it's like to do mushrooms, this was my trip. But this is just one girls experience. If your planning on doing shrooms, do it with people you trust, and who care about you. If you get scared, remember you're not alone and it doesn't last forever. Many people I know have a wonderful time on mushrooms, even Nick and Dustin enjoyed themselves. I'm neither condemning nor supporting the use of drugs, but I say; The world is here for us to explore.

*Names have been changed.