Experience:15g psilocybe truffles - first experience
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Last saturday I took one dose (15g) of medium strength psychedelic truffles.
Although I have never used psychedelics, I have several non-recreational MDMA experiences, which made me feel brave enough to attempt the magic truffle. I put the truffles in warm water and after a while mashed them with a fork and ate them around 14:30.
I gave the setting a little thought beforehand. The setting was my 2-person bed, comfortable with cushions and some things to do within arms reach, like watercolor painting and a guitar. For music there was a laptop with in-ear headset . After ingesting the truffles I put on a mongolian throat singing performance that I thought was perfect for the occasion. I hung a paper in front of me on the wall with the word "Observe, Calmly" on it.
After 45 minutes the first effects seem to take effect. I was focused on the mongolian performance, but suddenly noticed a pattern on the wall. I tried as best I could to understand what was happening to my brain. The walls were breathing. The hallucinations increased more slowly than I expected and I could think and plan normally.
The hallucinations were increasing in intensity. At one point I thought: "The truffles are not only affecting my vision, what are they affecting as well?". Once I thought this I noticed small touch hallucinations over my body and a delicious distortion of the music in my ears. Also I noticed the visual hallucinations were also happening in deeper visual levels of the brain, where maps of forms are located, since more and more shapes seemed to be projected on the wall i was looking at. When I kept my eyes still I would see more hallucinations, and when I did not move I felt more touch hallucinations. I remember thinking "It is almost like a 10% of neural impulses are randomised, while 90% is still functioning. I wonder what happens when the trip increases".
Up until this point I had been at times felt pretty negative due to boredom. The trip takes a lot of time to start, and I did not know if it was going to be useful or a waste of time.
Now the trip was becoming more intense. The mongolian throat singing performance was a delight, and it seemed the music was producing a lot of touch hallucinations. The visual hallucinations changed, the room was no longer breathing slowly, the breathing is a mild distortion.
I remember the following thoughts during the more intense phase (probably 1:30 in): "Oke now I am clearly tripping. Could I recommend this to (a friend)? Why would a person like to use this? How could we use this? Do I feel good? This is nothing like MDMA, I like that way better. I feel oke but also feel bad in my stomach." I was constantly keeping my hand on my belly, due to nausea and stomach ache.
Something that I clearly observed to be a good reason to enjoy the trip at that moment, is the touch hallucinations. At the medium to high level is was like hundreds of hands were on my body and massaged me. From my ears to my toes everything was being massaged.
In order to answer the question to myself ("How could we use this?") I attempted to think of problems in my life. However I concluded that I could not concentrate long enough to think of something from my life. I was wondering if the truffles are affecting a thought map or matrix, just like the visual hallucination are affecting simple and complex shape matrices. I focused intensely on detecting thought hallucinations. I remember I then had the following thought: I imagined a long chain of small thinking components. If every component is hallucination a little bit, like 10%, the chance for an impulse to be unaffected throughout the whole chain is like 0%
Now a new distinctive phase started. The low, vibrating emotional singing of the mongolians, the powerful visual and touch hallucinations, it was like falling through the wormhole in the movie Contact. The sound was like a constant thundering vibration, my visual was a thundering lightshow. The touch sensations were all over the place. One moment I remember particularly well is when a full body touch hallucination peaked for a few seconds and completely absorbed me. I noticed i truly felt the sensation of melting in the bed I was laying on. I remember thinking "Finally! the hallucination is now "a complete arm" instead of "a tingle" ".
I remember thinking "You could so easily think this is not happening in your brain". I explored this a bit by on purpose trying to imagine I was riding on a horse on the mongolian steppe, toward the next battle for life and death. When I did this, I felt like I was surrounded by an enormous mongolian tribe which were screaming and chanting and trying to ward off bad spirits in a dreamlike world. I was aware that this was a fantasy, but I was impressed with how enormously exciting and real-like it was possible for me to fantasize in this state.
I was very interested in observing effects on my thoughts. Up till this point I had been a bit let down by the normality of my thoughts throughout the sensory hallucinations. Now in the height of the trip, I was observing my thinking brain could not keep track of "state". It was like miniscule parts of thinking were occasionally available to me, like they were bubbling in and out of existence with the speed of slow big boiling water bubbles in your head. I definitely was not able to hold on to a piece of thinking-ability through will. I remember thinking "Every small piece of brain needs to make sense of the situation in isolation. So dont worry if they fuck up, they probably will".
In response to this, I thought "So what are all these parts normally doing then?", and a thought answered: "They are all bent on trying one and only one thing: Improve your happiness". The hallucination of an enormously long chain of small thought systems came again, and a large commanding fist smashed through the chain as if the chain was a straw. The fist was the command "MAKE ME HAPPY" that was mistreating and coercing all the sad little systems to work for the fist.
Throughout the main peak of the trip I was feeling very bad in my stomach. I had already tried every option i had during the medium phase, going to the toilet, eating something, massaging my stomach, walking, drinking water. However now the main peak started my bubbling thoughts concluded that I could better lay down and keep the positive vibe of the didgeridoo music i was now listening to close. When I put the music from my head I was very disoriented and worried, so i clinged to the music. The bubbling of my thoughts became very apparent in how I tried to keep myself feeling good. I started to say loudly in my head repetitively "I want to feel good, I want to feel good". I had the sensation that I was extremely intensely searching (like the fist). I got the hallucination that I was drilling, I attempted to steer the music and touch sensations towards the negative matrix of impulses that my body was sending back. I had the thought that I was drilling through a rock towards my stomach, and once I would drill through the rock I would have a release of the irritation in my stomach.
However, my stomach kept me feeling on edge. If the trip would take a wrong turn, I was sure the irritation could explode. I hallucinated that I was clinging very tightly on a rope which is stretched over and abyss. The trip was howling like the wind. During the main phase of the trip, I was constantly tightening my whole body and I occasionally was actually holding on to my bed sheets for dear life.
At the highest peak of the trip, while torrents were racing over my body, in my vision and my hearing, I had the thought that I could maybe stop feeling bad in the stomach by cutting the sensation of my body from my awareness, which i thought could be wonderful if it worked. I tried it a little. I noticed that for some time i had been trying very hard to keep my stomach in my awareness, and could stop doing that. Then, I did not feel my body anymore except for my arms. I felt panick, because I knew I would lose conscious control over my bowel movements, and potentially release everything that I can release on my bed. I did not like that so a second later when I felt my stomach again, I just kept some focus on it and kept clinging on the rope and waited out the storm.
What i find strange is that I expected a battle with my ego and rigid thoughts, but what I got is a battle with my body. When the trip slowly became less intense, I sat on the edge of my bed, and sighed very hard and very relieved. This reverberated across my whole body and felt wonderful. It did not have a hangover, so I was back to normal at 20:00
Well, there you go!
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