An Experience with Sacred Mushrooms
Playing the Game of Me


Dosage : Approx. 3g Cubensis Mushrooms

On September 23rd my husband and I had our first real Psilocybin experience.
Having previously done fairly large quantities of LSD, I thought I would be
well-prepared for new psychedelics. At around 10:30 we ingested about 2
grams each of powdered cubensis mushrooms, followed by an additional gram
each about half an hour later. Eating the mushrooms was somewhat unpleasant,
and shortly after the second dose my husband vomited. I was just beginning
to feel the effects at that point and was overcome with sympathy for him.
Vomiting on psychedelics is colorful but not exactly fun. I experienced mild
nausea from 10:30 to about 11:30, but laying down seemed to alleviate it
somewhat. I reclined on the floor and began watching the carpet shift and
form moving patterns. The trip started a lot more quickly than I had
expected, and I had a momentary fear that I had taken too large a dose. The
lights became an annoyance, and we turned most of them off.

One of the first things I noticed (aside from the crawling carpet) was how
tense I was, especially in my neck and back. I then began to realize how
anxious and tense I had been for some time. Almost immediately I began to
hear another voice in my head...I wondered why my body felt so shitty, and
the voice explained a number of factors in my life that had contributed to
that. I felt sleepy, dreamy, and I succumbed to the urge to close my eyes. I
began to enter a trance state. At first I hallucinated glowing 3-D
molecules, strings of neon light and layers of iridescent, netlike fabric-
but these soon gave way to heavier shit.

I started receiving what I can best describe as genetic memory of the
mushroom- its long history with humans, and I gained some insight into the
shamanic possibilities it possessed. I was shown a number of paths I could
follow, from reliving someone else's mushroom trip to experiencing death to
performing acts of magic. It reminded me of the final scenes in Hesse's
Steppenwolf.

The voice was joined by other voices, which I thought to be earth elementals
or vegetation spirits. All of the voices were friendly, helpful, and they
helped me decide on a path for the trip- it was to be a metaprogramming sort
of thing. A friend of ours spoke and I slowly came out of the trance and sat
up.

The hallucinations did not intensify in the same way that LSD does as you
begin to peak, and the side effects were much less severe. I felt relaxed,
comfortable, and mellow. I sensed that the mushroom was alive and with me,
but I felt detached from the world and everything but my consciousness.
Everything seemed unreal and unimportant. It was at about this point that
our friend suggested we try some Nitrous.

My husband did the first balloon. He sat with his eyes closed, smiling, for
about 30 seconds, and came out of it laughing. He tried to explain what it
had done to him but words seemed inadequate. He then joined our friend in
trying to convince me to try it, but I didn't want to. A voice explained to
me, "That's not what this trip is about." My husband did two more balloons,
and seemed, for lack of better words, blown away by them.

I began to slip back into a trance, and the serious work of my trip was
begun in silence. Our friend put on some music, and I occasionally drifted
out of the trance to ponder the strangeness of the lyrics. My consciousness
was shown to me as a 3-dimensional board game with amazing multicolored
passageways and columns. Together with the other entities, I began to play
the game of Me. I started examining my interpersonal relationships and saw
some large mistakes I had been making- the voices showed me, in a kindly
way, that I had been selfish, neurotic, and guilty of perpetuating bad
karma. My bitterness, resentment and anger were shown to me as a parasite I
needed to let go of, and I did. I was overwhelmed with inner peace and joy.
My ego slowly faded away and I felt like I was part of the Vibration of the
All.

As the peak ended, I started reconstructing my personality, and I was shown
further work that needed to be done. Our friend went home, and my husband
and I discussed what we had experienced as best we could. We smoked some
marijuana, and the trip came to an end. I decided that the trip, although
scary at times, was definitely a highly positive experience, and I felt a
strong urge to thoroughly explore the strange world of psilocybin.