I first thought about putting this thread in the Magic Mushroom Trips section but felt that since it covers not only the trips but also what my friend swim learnt from the experiences it fits better in this forum.
My friend swim tried shrooms for the first time last year, and has done them a number of times since then. The first two trips stick out in swim's mind because of their sheer intensity and power, as well as the mistakes swim made and the things he learned from those two incredible experiences. The trip reports are listed below. (Will most likely be posted in sections)
Trip #1
Swim was expecting a friend to drive up for the weekend. He had just gotten a hold of a half-ounce of some psilocybin mushrooms that were supposed to be pretty good. He found his friend would arrive late night on Friday and planned a trip session. Thus his first shroom trip would begin, so he was very psyched. The journey had begun.
Swim's friend arrived at around 11:30pm. Swim quickly assembled him and two other friends in a small room in a dormitory. He doled out 3.5 grams of mushrooms to each person and broke out the bread, peanut butter, and rasberry jelly. Sandwichs were quickly prepared, and by around 11:45pm were fully ingested. Now it was time to wait, anticipation taking over swim's mindset. He always got this feeling the first time he took a drug he had never experienced before, but as this was one of his first true hallucinogens he was especially anxious.
Swim sat with his friends and they started talking casually. Each one was a little anxious in their own way. Some were tense, while others were more relaxed yet pensive. In any case after a little bit from ingestion time swim began to feel a slight unsettling feeling, the type of feeling that creeps up when you have ingested a mind altering substance yet that isn't quite distinguishable from sobriety. He began to try and relax more and let the feeling envelope him.
After another 15 minutes or so swim was definitely feeling some "stoning" effects. It wasn't something he could really describe, but things just felt different. He didn't notice any visuals or explainable effects yet but knew that the psilocybin was taking hold. The conversation between him and his friends started picking up a bit and getting a bit more anxious. Things were about to get good!
Swim finally started getting visuals another 15 minutes afterwards. He isn't sure, but he thinks it was about 1 hour exactly after ingestion. 45 minutes after was when he started to really feel the effect settling in and it took another 15 minutes before the visuals started coming in. The first thing he noticed was colour distortion. One of his friends (sober) was around to try and mess with the trippers. He was of mixed ethnicity, and had slighly tannish skin. It looked orange and reddish and seemed to glow under the room's flourescent lights. Swim learned afterwards that his friend was trying to freak the trippers out on purpose, but agreed with his friends that the guy's natural appearances and demeanor were way scarier than the things he was actually doing to try and trip them out! The guy left the room shortly afterwards and the real visuals started streaming in.
At this point swim was totally detached from any conversation going on. He was definitely feeling the shrooms more than his fellow trippers. He began staring at a poster on the wall. The poster was of a river going out to sea in a tropical yet asian looking environment (think Vietnam but much less trees and shrubbery). Swim had been staring at it earlier, but now the river was actually flowing out to the ocean whose waves were crashing on the red sand of the beach while the palm trees were gracefully swaying in the wind. Swim was extremely happy to be experiencing such cool visuals, though he had no idea what he was getting into.
Shortly after the poster starting to come alive, so did the room! Swim first started noticing shadows in all corners of the room. Then the shadows morphed into black faces that seemed to multiply until they were ominous featureless face shapes all over the room. At this point swim knew he had to get outside. The artificial feeling of the room was beginning to be too much to take.
Swim and his friends agreed to make a trip outside. However, while this sounded easy enough it proved to be quite an ordeal (none of the people had done shrooms before). Swim first took off his watch (a metal fossil watch) as it felt like it weighed several pounds and seemed huge and foreign on his wrist. He then proceeded to spend what seemed like 15 minutes going through his pockets and figuring out what to leave behind as everything felt weird and uncomfortable. That finally finished, the group he aded out for the elevator.
When they got down the hall to the elevator they all paused. The elevator light was flickering on and off and it was sitting there with the door open. The elevator had been known to break down in the past but it looked freakish and evil in this altered state of mind, so swim and his buddies hurried down the stairs (which would later be known as the eternal ascent).
Swim was appreciating all the visuals on the way to the exit door (several billboards were VERY trippy indeed!) when his phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and it seemed very foreign and strange to him. He answered it and tried to hold a conversation but was having a very difficult time communicating anything at all. Swim's friend ended up just grabbing the phone and mumbling something about altered states of mind and not being able to talk before hanging up. With that they were out to the field outside the dorm!
This was definitely the coolest part of the trip. Swim walked down a hill to the field and looked down while walking. It looked like he was walking on piles of electrical cords and christmas tree lights! Looking back after he got down to the field the trees looked freakish and lifelike as their branches beckoned to him. He didn't feel scared though, only respectful and slightly amused. The grass below him seemed to sway with life, dancing in the breeze. The cool air (too cool as swim was wearing shorts in 40 degree weather!) enveloped swim's legs, freezing him to the ground, rooting him like a tree. Swim looked at the stars and was amazed. They shone down like nothing he had ever seen before, and he was so captivated by their brilliance he couldn't look away for a period of time despite the begging of his friends. Swim and his friends had a few cigarettes. They looked hugeg and fake, almost plastic. It was quite cool as swim couldn't see any smoke running off from the cigarette itself, only when he exhaled. The cigarette also seemed like it didn't burn at all. Swim would inhale and not notice it burn down. Only when he looked away and then back at it did it seem smaller. Swim had to use the bathroom so he and one friend headed back to the building (he needed someone to go with him to feel safe) while the other two remained outside. One the way in swim looked at a building on the side with its lights still on and saw a huge face grinning maniacally at him. He simply grinned back and headed on his way.
Once inside the building swim and his friend took the stairs again to avoid the freakishness of the elevator. The stair journey seemed to take forever, with swim feeling exhausted after reaching the fourth floor. Swim and Bob (as swim's friend will be called) dropped in on another friend before heading to the bathroom to see what was up. This was a bad idea. Swim and his tripping friends had no trouble communicating with each other but were completely unable to communicate with another friend who was totally sober. The exchange was very awkward and stilted even though the friend knew they were tripping (or maybe that was the reason). In any case swim and bob hurried to the bathroom.
The bathroom felt huge and spacious. Swim never had felt it was that big. It seemed so enormous that some people could play a mini football match in it! In any case swim hurried to the bathroom and had the weirdest experience he can think of when it comes to trips. He began to piss and felt excellent as the liquid emptied from him. But then he felt his penis begin to melt into the liquid and go into the toilet as well!! he looked down and saw his penis blur into his hands and start flowing down in the stream of urine!! Swim was very freaked out at this but within his senses enough to know he was just tripping. He just looked up and fought the temptation to think about it until he was done. He felt better afterwards, but still felt a weird sensation in his crotch area. He hurried out of the bathroom as it didn't feel good to be in there anymore.
After another trip outside to admire the scenery, swim and his friends went back to the room to chill out some. Swim put on an xbox and put the Shpongle cd
Are You Shpongled? in. The visualizer was amazing, though the music didn't transfer into the trip very well. Even interacting with the equipment was awkward and weird feeling. Swim and his friends had a good laugh about the music as they hadn't heard anything like that before. Still, it seemed that they were coming back a bit, so swim and bob headed out to the nearby forrest to go smoke some pot.
They went up a hill near a path (its more of a public park type thing than actual forrest, call it an arboretum) and packed a bowl. Bob began cracking up as he saw some people walking on the path below and thought they were midgets! The pot made the come down feel better, and both swim and bob were very relaxed afterwards.
Swim went back to the room after that to find his other friend (lets call him Tom) sitting on the couch staring into nothingness while the other guy (lets call him Mark) was trying to talk to him. Tom was staring into blank space, occaisionally looking at one of the friends and giggling before looking away again. Mark and swim watched a South Park episode and then swim went to crash. He had some remarkable and crazy dreams and felt relaxed though a bit tired the next day.
Swim learnt that Tom's shrooms didn't hit him really until everyone else was coming down (he ate dinner late and has a slow metabolism to begin with) and had an extremely bad trip. He thought he was dead and though he could hear swim and mark thought that it didn't matter as he was dead and couldn't communicate anyways. Thats another story though.
Things Learnt From Trip #1
Anyways, swim enjoyed his first shroom trip quite a bit and learned a few useful things because of it.
- Plan your trip out beforehand. This isn't essential, but can be very helpful so you aren't just stuck in a little room most of the time. Make a plan to explore beforehand as decision making is much harder during tripping.
- Wear comfortable clothes and keep as few things as possible in your pockets. Objects like watches and gum packets and other fairly normal things can seem quite forum while on shrooms, and if you decide to place them somewhere while tripping you may become quite paranoid of losing them. Take only what you need!
- Don't talk on the phone. Its not extremely bad to, but can be very confusing at time and confusion can cause bad trips, so its just something you want to avoid. That and it could be someone unaware of your drug use who may be very concerned and questioning if you sound very out of it.
- Try not to talk to too many sober people. Even if they are good friends or know you are tripping, when you are on the peak of a shroom trip communication with sober people is difficult. Its like you are in a different world, and can only really get across to people of a like mind (i.e. other people tripping)
- Being outside is much better than being inside while on shrooms (for some people at least). Being inside feels artificial and weird, and seems cold and detached. Being outside feels warm and at home, and you feel connected to all things nature. At night this can be a bit more freaky as trees look scarier than in the day, but if you are comfortable outdoors in general you should be able to handle it.
- Having pot for the come down is a good thing. It is very helpful to swim and his friends, especially in the case that they have a bad trip. It gives you something to do while coming down and is social so it gets you talking again, which can be good after two hours of introspective hell!
- The visual setting is much more important than the acoustic setting. That basically means that if you are going to set up for a trip its better to focus on things to look at rather than laying out music for the trip. The visuals were amazing while for swim the music sounded pretty much as normal. Calm music seems to be better than really trippy music with shrooms as the trippy music doesn't get any trippier while the calm music just soothes you and can make you less anxious.
- Having friends along for the ride is clutch. It makes the experience great as you can share it while experiencing it!
- Doing shrooms at night is ok, but just be sure you aren't too tired. In this case swim and his friends did the shrooms a bit late so they were wiped out by the time the trip finished. The trip is more enjoyable if you have a good amount of energy. Plus being exhausted when tripping can cause very negative results, as swim's second trip report will show.
I will post swim's second trip report shortly, probably tomorrow as I am a bit tired at this point. I hope people find this helpful and sorry if its a bit verboase and long, I got a bit carried away with swim's descriptions.
More to come.....