May 16th 2023

Hey everyone, this is my first time writing here! Although I've always wanted to because I consider myself a psychonaut, though in a limited manner since I actually do not have much experience with psychedelics and am pretty fresh in my introduction to these substances. In fact I've only ever tried shrooms, and had a somewhat disappointing experience with DMT that I wont go into because thats not what this is about. Over the past three years I have tried shrooms several times since I first began looking into their effects. I believe I first tried them when I was 22, back in 2020 during the pandemic. I also tried my hand at growing them, to mixed success. Fast forward to today, at 25 years old, I live in an apartment with my girlfriend. I just finished my undergrad in college last monday. I hadn't touched shrooms since last spring. Yesterday I wasn't scheduled to work so I decided I would head into NYC to buy some shrooms in Washington Square park, a usual area where people set up to sell weed openly, as well as some sell shrooms. My girlfriend was scheduled to be out all day due to a big event at her work, so I had the house to myself. Well myself and my cat. I woke up in the morning with my girlfriend and I drove her to the bus stop so she could head out to work. I came home and immediately showered so I could head out to the city. It was a quick trip. I had done this same route two weeks ago to buy shrooms also. I bought z-strain from one of the vendors in the park, as it was all she had. This was one kind of cubensis that I had not tried yet. I bought 7 grams from her, as I was planning on taking a heroic dose since two weeks ago I had bought the same amount in golden teacher except I didn't take it all at once. Once again, as with all other times, I felt that feeling of exhilaration as my heart beat sped up. I was excited. I loved shrooms and I felt that I was finally ready to take a heroic dose, since I had on and off experience with shrooms. I felt prepared as a psychonaut, in part because I had believed that I had experienced bad trips that left me crying hysterically during the trip. It was my naivete that would cause the ensuing events to occur. On my way home I stopped by a Wendy's to buy lunch as i had completely skipped breakfast and by that time it was 2pm. Upon making it home, I immediately set out to begin the process of lemon tekking the z-strain i had. I didn't weigh out the shrooms at all because the girl had sold them to me as two separate 8ths. In all honestly, what I had could very well have been more than 7 grams. I dumped the contents of the two bags into my coffee tumbler and I filled it up with enough lemon juice to fully submerge the shrooms. I watched as the lemon juice turned a very dark blue, almost black. After letting them soak in there for a little bit I heated up my water, grabbed my favorite green tea bag and mixed them with the lemon juice soaked shrooms. I sat down in front of my TV and sipped the mixture in between bites of my burger and French fries as I watched the Sopranos. Within 20 minutes of finishing the tea mixture, I began to feel the effects starting to set in. The walls around me began to breathe. The light from outside that was coming in through the window seemed to grow brighter, warmer in tone, and more vivid. I was in the state that I was very familiar with, in which I went from seeing life in normal low low resolution to HD. Almost immediately though, the trip began to intensify rapidly, leaving me no time to settle into what was going on. I began to have more visual distortions appear on the walls, on the wood paneled floor, in the tree outside the window in my living room. I was slightly unsettled because the intensity that the trip had taken was something so unfamiliar to myself. I tried to remind myself not to fight the trip, to go with the flow and let the shrooms show me what it is that I needed to see. With this I managed to remain calm as I tried to focus on the Sopranos. I had eaten half of my burger by this point and a small portion of fries, but as I looked at my food to continue eating, it became very unappealing to me, and I wanted to throw up at the sight of the food. I figured the nausea was probably due in part because of the shrooms and I didn’t want to throw up, lose the mixture I drank and ruin my trip. So I grabbed the food quickly, threw it back in the bag it came in and got up to throw it out. When I got up, I noticed I was very unsteady. Almost as if I was drunk. I was able to stumble my way back to the couch where I had been sitting and this was the point where I felt like I was losing motor skills. I also felt very very cold. I grabbed the hoodie I had sitting on a chair and struggled to put it on. It was as if though my mind knew I wanted to put it on, but my body wasn't doing what I was telling it to do. Eventually I was able to force myself to throw it on almost violently. I was standing up again when I did this and I decided I needed to go to the bathroom to pee. I stumbled my way there and sat on the toilet. I immediately forgot what I was there for and I began to see the black and white tile floor change and morph into different geometric shapes. The white and beige tile walls appeared to be mini oceans that formed waves within each tile. After what seemed to be an eternity, I broke out of the stupor that I was in and said to myself that I needed to get up. I spoke aloud, commanding every movement that I needed to make, forcing my body to listen to me. This was the only way I was able to get myself off the toilet. I hadn't even urinated as I had originally intended to. I whipped my pants up from around my ankles and while still calling out orders to myself I washed my hands, avoiding the medicine cabinet mirror, as I was feeling on edge already and didn't want to see something that would fully freak me out. I made it back to the living room and though I attempted to sit on the couch again I couldn't sit still as my vision began to swim. I couldn't focus anymore on anything. I decided to turn off the show I was watching and instead play some music to keep myself calm. In my head I kept trying to remind myself that it was just a trip that I was fine as long as I didnt fight it. After switching to Spotify on my TV and playing some calm music, I found that my body wanted to get up. I didnt know why and it was not a thought that I had come up with myself. I felt as if something had possessed me and took control of my motor functions while leaving my mind trapped within a vessel that was not my own anymore. I walked over to the window where my cat was perched and I looked outside, not really knowing what I was doing. Then I stumbled through my kitchen, where I had left the knife out that I had used to cut up the z-strain shrooms. I'm not sure why but I focused on it for a second then my body pushed on to the front door. I managed to speak and command my body not to go near the door, to remain within the boundaries of the house while I was tripping. My body unwillingly returned to the living room and I fell to the floor, almost as if it was exhausting the effort I had just done going through my home. I sat up on the floor and stretched out my hands, spreading my fingers on the floor boards, where it seemed that my fingers began to submerge themselves within the wood. The floor itself began to look more like a tree, unlike its usual cheap wooden appearance. Once the floor lost my attention, this was when I felt my mind slipping. Up until this point I had been able to hold onto my own thoughts and I had still been able to form coherent sentences to myself. But now whatever force had taken control of my body sat me up straight all of a sudden and I began feeling thoughts that were not my own come into my head. I began to see myself as two separate entities, with the one in control not being myself. I felt the other entity try using my voice as I yelled incoherent things into the air. My movements became erratic and unpredictable. I would flail my arms out and jerk them one way or another. I was still sitting on the floor but my body would sway backwards until I was laying on the ground. I began to kick my legs around, and move them back and forth along the floor, picking up so much dust that it collected on my pants. At one point I caught a glimpse of my cat laying in her bed next to where I was laying on the floor. The look in her eyes appeared to me to be frightened and that when I completely lost it. I began to freak out and feel all the worst thoughts I could think of began to flood my mind. I thought that I had gone into psychosis and that I would never be able to come out of it. I felt that I had delved to deep into this dose of shrooms. I began to beleive that maybe I was actually dead, that the shrooms had been laced with fantasy and that I was just slowly dying and that that was the explanation for my erratic movements. My mind was beginning to shatter as fear poured into me. At this point the other entity that had taken control of my movements got me up off the floor and sent me to the fridge, where I grabbed the pitcher of water along with a cup from the cabinet and I poured myself water. I drank without wanting to. I didnt know why my body was moving this way. It seemed that now the other entity had full coordinated control of my body, as if though the erratic movements had been the entitie's way of practicing until it fully understood how to move me. With no control over myself whatsoever, I walked to the bathroom and once again took off my pants to sit on the toilet. I peed this time, then brought my pants up, and walked to the living room where I sat on the couch again. I was trying to grip onto the slipping pieces of my mind, feeling that I was going insane, that I was no longer going to be able to go back to who I was before the shrooms. My long hair was in my face and I felt myself break into tears, tears that I did not consciously understand, although I knew that they were caused by the fear of what I would become if I were to remain in this psychosis. I walked around the house, though my movements were still not my own, and I was filled with the idea that I had gone permanently insane. I believed that my current state was not going to go away, that I was stuck. I feared myself and what I had become. I felt extremely uncomfortable in my own skin and I felt that the person I used to be before the trip was gone. I thought about my girlfriend and how much it would hurt her to see me in the state I was in. I felt terrible for not even telling her that I had taken the shrooms, as this was something that I was doing without her knowledge. And I knew it was something she didn't approve of in the first place. I thought about my widowed mother and how much it would hurt her after she found out that her only son was still physically here but mentally in a permanent psychotic episode. The guilt of having taking such a high dose of shrooms in my naivete consumed me. The worst part came when the idea of how I could get away from the fear, the confusion, and the uncomfortable news of the state that I was in. Suicide. The idea of ending my life in order to get out of this situation entered my mind. My body brought me once again into the kitchen where the jagged knife I had used to cut up the shrooms was sitting on the counter. I reached out for it. I believed that this was the only way to escape my shattered mind. The part of me that was still sane screamed in my mind telling me to stop, reminding me that it was just a bad trip. I stopped reaching for the knife, and my body moved out of the kitchen. I went into the bathroom and once again I sat on the toilet then got up. This time I washed my hands in the sink again and when I was done, I looked up into the the mirror. I saw myself and smiled. I was still able to recognize myself and realize that that was me. The problem was that now, the entity no longer merely controlled just my body, but it also started whispering in my mind, telling me that the person in the mirror was the old me. It told me that I would never again be that person, that I would always be consumed by fear, no longer in control of myself or my thoughts. I turned and walked out of the bathroom. I stood in the hallway staring at the wall in front of the bathroom door. The other entity grew louder and louder in my head. I was trying to quiet it, while it told me the only way I was going to be able to shut it up was if I slammed my head into the wall. I imagined this happening, I saw myself slamming my head repeatedly until I knocked myself out, or worse. Luckily, right then I felt the grip that the shrooms had on me lessen slightly. It seemed to me that the other entity faltered slightly, leaving space for the old me to claw its way to the front. I reminded myself once again that I was just tripping, that as long as I waited it out, it would pass. I returned to the couch, took off Spotify from the TV and tried to watch Bob's Burgers, a show that I knew I always found comfort in. I played the last episode I had been watching, but I couldn't focus. I kept feeling the other entity win over my true self, and instill moments of panic into my head. Then my true self would come back and try to calm me down. It felt like an eternal fight for control. Each time the other entity would shortly take over, I would stop the episode, turn off the TV and feel disgust for being trapped in the body that I had. Then my true self would come back and I would start the episode all over again. I felt stuck in a loop. I have no idea how many times I actually sat there and did this. Finally I felt the other entity leave, but not the effects of the trip. I felt my true self come back but I was still having visual distortions and I was terrified once again that I was stuck in a psychosis, that I would have to live my life like this. I grabbed my phone and with the minimal sanity that I had left, I looked up how to stop my trip, but because of the state of mind I was in, I couldn't understand anything that I found. I didn't know what to do at this point, I was so afraid of staying in this state of mind and being caught by my girlfriend. I thought about going to the hospital, but I didnt want to out of fear of her getting called by the hospital letting her know of what I had done. I thought about calling my mom, and hoped that a familiar voice would soothe me enough to get me into a calmer state. I called her but I couldn't focus on the conversation. I tried to talk to her normally but at one point I couldn't understand the language that she was speaking in. I hung up. She called again a few minutes later, this time a video call. I couldn't recognize her on the phone, she seemed like a stranger to me. I hung up again. When she tried calling me again, I didn't answer. This was when I felt that if I just slept, I could wake up and the trip would be over. I turned off the TV once again still on the same episode that I had been attempting to watch over and over again. I laid down on the couch and tried closing my eyes but panic filled up inside of me again telling me that this was not something that was going to be fixed, that I was stuck like this forever. Finally, I decided that as my last resort I would call my girlfriend. I hoped that hearing her voice would ground my mind in a normal state. I called once and it went to voice-mail. Then I called her again, also going to voice-mail. She texted me saying that she couldn't answer the phone, and asked what was up. I lied saying that I just wanted to talk to her. Then I put my phone down. My mind melted once again here. I lost a sense of who I was, forgetting my past. I felt fear grip me tighter, as I fell into the loop of starting and stopping the same episode of Bob's Burgers once again. Eventually though I was able to remember that I was tripping. I told myself to calm down and to try and just get through it. It seemed that the scary effects of the trip were leaving by that point too. The paralyzing fear of being stuck in that state of mind had passed, though the concern that it might not leave was still there. I checked the time and noticed that it was 5pm. I told myself that I still had plenty of time to let the effects of the shrooms go away before I needed to go pick up my girlfriend at 8pm. I turned on the TV Gain, intent on sitting there and letting the time pass by while I watched Bob's Burgers. I felt that I would get stuck in the loop again if I tried watching the same episode, so this time I played the next one. As the frightening effects left more and more, I indulged in the show. I began wondering if everything that had just happened had even been real. I wasnt sure what was real anymore. I began thinking about who I was and realized I didn't know. As I watched episode after episode I kept getting lost in thought. I thought about my past trying to connect pieces of my life. I felt like I was diving into past lives as I remembered moments of my childhood. I remembered my time in the military. I remembered the book I had just finished reading. I felt that everything was connected and as I went over each new stage of my life I felt that each one was a different lifetime that I was living. I began to feel as if though I had the power to rewrite my past and that I was in charge of this reality. In a way I felt like I was God. Then I began to understand that I had chosen to insert my mind into the body that I currently inhabited. It felt like I had woken up from a long dream. I knew that I had had many other past lives, but in each life I always found my way to my girlfriend. She became a beam of light in my clouded mind that I used to keep myself grounded. I felt a complete acceptance of my life and felt that if I had once been unhappy with the way things were going, I was content because I had found my way to my soul mate once again. Eventually the effects of the shrooms started going away, and I was brought back into a semi-sober state. Colors were still vivid and vibrant, and the walls still breathed slightly, but I felt a sense of peace after learning to accept that I was in a good place and that I doing good in life despite all the terrible events and depression that I had sufferers since the death of my father in 2020. Today is the day after the events of this trip, and I after thinking about everything that happened, I'm glad to be alive. I made the mistake of taking a high dose of shrooms before actually being ready to handle an experience like that. I think back on the moments in which I considered suicide to end the trip and I feel like crying. I almost did something that would have affected the people in my life irreparably. And while I can't tell my girlfriend about what happened, or anyone else in my life for that matter, I still wanted to get it out there what I had experienced. Hopefully others learn from my mistake and prepare better for a heroic dose, better than I did. I should have had a trip sitter to begin with and I should have realized that I was not ready for it to begin with. Even so, I'm not put off by shrooms. Hopefully one day I can attempt another heroic dose, albeit a little better prepared for the trip. Thank you to those that read all the way through. I know this was a long one.