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A Tent with No Poles
Mushrooms & Cannabis
Citation:   Ik-Neg. "A Tent with No Poles: An Experience with Mushrooms & Cannabis (exp24431)". Erowid.org. Jan 6, 2007. erowid.org/exp/24431

 
DOSE:
1.0 g oral Mushrooms (dried)
    repeated smoked Cannabis (plant material)
BODY WEIGHT: 160 lb
Introduction: I am a 26-year old west-european male, working in a big corporation. A is a female law student, 23 years old, small, pretty and intelligent. M is a 23-year female who will very soon finish her business studies, also pretty and intelligent, but in a different way than A. We have the occasional habit of consuming cannabis 1-4 times every two months and we know each other pretty well.

We had thought about getting mushrooms about one week ago, when we were talking about our plan to go to Netherlands for the holiday. We decided to go camping, because it's fun and inexpensive. Our plans also included enjoying lots of the good-quality cannabis around in Amsterdam.

After spending couple of days in Amsterdam and having bought the shrooms from a very nice shop at Spuistraat(the name I will not reveal). We asked about the different shrooms, and decided to take hawaijians, as they were the strongest ones and we did want to have powerful experience. AFAIK, it's now allowed to sell dried shrooms anymore in Amsterdam, but because we specifically asked for those we got them - I guess they are not too worried about the laws.

The next day we drove to a small village near the coast, did some shopping for food and beverages and parked the car next to grass dunes.

+0 min: We had just got back from another city spending two days enjoying of sun, life and copious amouns of cannabis. This would be the first time for everybody to experience mushrooms (well, A had experience of mushrooms already, but the amount was so small that she became just disappointed). We had acquired three bags of hawaiian mushrooms, estimatedly 1 gram per person. As the seller of the mushrooms had suggested, we took only half of bag first. The amount was very little, but I couldn't bear to bite the shrooms as such, the taste was so horrible that I had to chew them with some Diet Coke. Strange enough, M seemed to have no problems at all with the taste.

+15 min: we're waiting for some effects to come up. I start to feel gradually something different in my mind and body, but the effects are still very subtle. M seems to become a bit sceptic about the stuff, she says that she cannot feel really anything. A suggests that we go outside for a walk, which I think is a good idea.

+30 min: I definitely feel something now. No visuals, but the body load seems to be very hard, all my muscles appear to weigh twice as much as normally and I feel slightly nauseous, but not nearly at the verge of vomiting. On the other hand, the sun is shining and the nature seems to be very beautiful, which I try to enjoy. A seems to be feeling good about everything also. M seems to be a bit grumpy, for example when me and A pointed out some beautiful flower or other objects of nature, she replied with 'I don't think that's really so beautiful'. I tried to get M to also appreciate the nature and forget the body load, nausea and tiredness, which I also was experessing, but which I knew would go away.

A bit later on M started to talk pretty aggressively and trying to boss us around, and I became somewhat irritated and pointed it out by saying that her attitude is shitty, as a reply to her remark that 'this is all shit'. A suggested that we get our tent and stuff and start to head to the beach, which we both felt as a good idea. M was pointing out that this is not a vacation, freezing outside and not knowing where to sleep. I agreed to her, although I was still irritated by her attitude. We start to pack and I realize it's pretty much stuff to drag along walking, but we manage to pack ourselves and prepare us for the journey. We didn't even think about driving, as we didn't know in what condition we would be later.

+45 min: Walking is very strenious and I'm now somewhat in bad mood after hearing M's complaints about everything, it was just too much. I thought that if I would have negative feelings like that I wouldn't speak them out loudly and risking to ruin the trip of the others if they were feeling good. I noticed that M started to be now in a better mood, so I thought that I should maybe make her realize that her behaviour was not very nice by taking her former role. Now I start to complain about stuff, her negative attitude etc in the same way she did. When she after some time said that now she's getting back the negative feelings I thought this is enough, and probably my point is not getting through anyway. After that I anyhow felt somehow taken away from my negative feelings, as I had a chance to let them out (hmmm... it maybe was similar for her also, so on the other hand it was also justified for her to express her negative feelings).

+1 hour 10 min: Now we are at the beach. The sun is shining, there's no wind and no cloud in the sky. Everything's so beautiful and I feel somehow very happy. The are hundreds of people in the beach, which was just 4 hours ago rainy and empty. At first we were a little sceptic about the possibility to camp at the beach, but as we saw a couple of other tents we were very reliefed - it must be allowed after all.

(At this point my sense of time becomes so blurry that I cannot recall the time frames anymore. Anyway, I fell asleep at 03:15, which may give you some feeling of time after reading this story.)

I asked the girls about their feelings. A seemed to feel very good, which I was happy about. I was a bit concerned about M's answer, but she said she feels great and very happy. At that point I felt really good and happy that we all three felt happy and there were no negative thoughts. I was more happy for them than for myself, although I was feeling perfect also.

Everything was a bit unreal somehow, althogh there were no visuals still. Although I noticed that the colors seem to be more intense than usually, and the sky was looking great. I began to feel somehow very hippie-like (as in 70's hippies), so free. We had our home, the tent, with us and we were free to do anything, as far as I was concerned. Nobody seemed to be bothered about us, even though we must have looked a bit strange in our condition. It was such a sudden environment change that I had to tell them about my feeling of being in Truman Show (the movie with Jim Carrey).

Suddenly a child approaches us. I notice her first for about 30 seconds without really thinking about it or why she's staring us. Then M says 'funny, isn't it' pointing at the child. The child still stares at us, not looking really happy, more worried or even condemning, until her mother calls her back. We laugh about the strange situation.

I put on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which increases the hippie-like feeling. It seemed to also be great music for enhancing the trip and providing sudden, unexpected sounds. M especially seemed to be feeling very hippie-like, she was somehow full of love, happiness, deep thoughts and everything. I liked to listen to her, although she was repeating the same thoughts over and over again. Occasionally she asked a bit child-likely questions like 'Is it normal to do that' when two people were lookng for some junk with metal-detectors. I assured her it's perfectly normal, and she had a good feeling about that. She also told her thoughts 'isn't it wonderful to have parents', 'can everybody enjoy this as we do' (the beauty of everything) and 'but that's cool, right?' after almost everything we said. Me and A said only occasionally remarks to each other, as M was talking all the time. We also expressed our agreement in her opinions constantly.

I tried to roll a joint, but it had already started to wind heavily so I had to stop attempting it. Strangely the weather became suddenly very bad, the sky was full of clouds and the wind was already really stormy. We begun to build up the tent with A, only to realize that we had left the tent poles at the car...

Then I saw a sign approximately 300 hundred meters from us at the beach which said 'Holiday Inn'. I thought 'perfect!' and explained my idea to A to go and ask about the prices and availability of accomodation. She understood what I meant, but when we tried to talk to M she answered with 'you are not listening to me!', and proceeded to tell again her ideas. A said 'you are now in a thought loop, try to get out of it'. But no, she wouldn't listen. We were though not yet worried, even if the storm had become stronger. This was repeated for approximately 20 minutes, after which I begun to get really worried.

This thought was stopped when A said that she can see her hand pulsating with her heart beat. I looked at her hand and it seemed so different than normally, it was somehow so detailed and I could also see her main vein pulsating very clearly, and also smaller veins and smaller pulsations on her hand. I looked at my hand and saw the same things. M said that her hand is blue now, and it was true. Although I think it was just because of our 'enhanced vision' - I thought that it cannot get so bad in such a short time.

Suddenly I thought about us having no tent, winding very heavily, we didn't have any proper clothing and probably no one could really remember where our car is. And we also had to drag all the stuff back, and in our condition it wouldn't be easy. I was worried about the girls' health, especially because M didn't seem to care about that at all. I expressed my worries to A who seemed to understand. Then we tried to explain it to M, still with no results - she was still thinking deep thoughts and said always occasionally 'but can everybody enjoy it?' and asked us if we understood her. Thinking about us, our health and my instinct to stay alive, I said loudly 'but this is about us now'. The girls started to laugh heartily, probably because it was so unexpected. I also heard M say to A 'it's really cute of him, isn't it'. I felt kind of unexpectedly touched as I hadn't meant it to be sweet, just to express my worries to them. After a while we finally got everything packed and started walking.

M noticed again that her hand was getting blue. I started to become even more worried, and when she said about her fingers being very cold, I verified it to be true by touching her hands. I then grabbed her cold fingers in one hand as we walked along. Her fingers seemed to warm up pretty quickly, and after approximately 200 meters of walking she didn't feel or seem cold at all anymore. At the same time, we noticed that the sky was amazingly cloudless again and the sun was shining! I made once again the remark about us being in Truman Show.

The girls hadn't got any idea about the location of our car, and I thought I would remember it, so we continued our journey. We went to the place where I thought the car would be, but it seemed that I had lead us to the wrong place. I thought that it must be somewhere pretty near and I said I know now the location (even if I wasn't really sure, but I didn't want to worry the girls). We had walked such a long way with all our stuff that we decided to rest a bit. We were currently in a suburban area with mostly bungaloows and almost no people outside. We were still feeling very hippie-like (well, about A I'm not sure, but at least me and M) and free, so we just spread our stuff on the corner of park place just about 6 meters from a house, which had a window pointing directly at us. I put again Pink Floyd on (with my portable CD-Player and battery-operated speakers in my bag) and rolled a joint.

The joint made the feeling of the mushroom trip stronger and caused nice, familiar cannabis-like feelings as well. We all became more talkative and begun to have deep thoughts again about various things. About Matrix philosophy (somehow very appealling when stoned), about being careless and free, about us being now in the other reality, on a higher level. I felt again so good, and I felt united with their minds somehow. We swore that we could get back to the 'other reality' also when sober. Shortly after that M realised that A had told us about her LSD-experiences far back in her youth and thus she must already be on a higher level. M asked her to explain this, and I also said to A that she should explain this. She knew all the time about the higher level. Then A told us that she had told us about the LSD-Experience and that you cannot really be told what the higher reality is, you have to be experience it yourself. We both agreed and start philosophing about Matrix and our world again. In this situation M seemed liked the hippie philosoph again and A was the modern philosoph, everything cool and perfect.

It started to become cloudy and windy again, and pretty cold. M said we could build our tent on the street. I tried to point out that we didn't have the tent poles and it would anyhow be impossible, because the street was made of asphalt. (Now later I realize that she probably meant just spreading the tent on the street and getting inside it.) Also A seemed to be in favour of M's idea, so they both climbed inside the tent standing on the floor. They tried to lure me inside, but I was more in favour of going to the car, because the weather was getting pretty bad. After a while I stepped inside anyway, although my other foot still on the asphalt. I was worried about us being too vulnerable staying inside the tent completely - I thought about some hooligans coming to kick us while being closed in a tent helplessly.

I stepped again out, and the girls tried to lure me in again. Somehow I thought about the greek myth about some nymph tempting men to them at the sea and causing accidents. The situation felt kind of sexy somehow, but I decided to keep my will strong anyway and stay outside. After this going on for about half an hour I finally got the girls to go to the car. After that M told me she would had only wanted to stay completely inside the tent just for a while, which made me feel a bit bad - I would have done that, but I was afraid that if I go in we stay there for hours and hours unable to defend ourselves.

It had begun to be really cold now. Luckily and surprisingly we found our car with little effor and I felt proud about being able to lead us to the car. We went inside, me and M ate a couple of croissants - A was strangely enough not hungry. We then begun to think about what we are going to do.

Especially funny was hearing Petula Clark's 'Downtown', it cheered up us all tremendously. A was sitting in the back of the car and M was sitting on the driver's seat and me next to her. If I remember corretly, we smoked a joint at this point, as we needed some refreshment after the long, long trip to the car. We all sang or danced to the song and after I heard the lyrics 'we can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares and go - downtown' M pointed down towards her thighs when the word 'downtown' was played. Being in some funny mood I thought it's very funny, because it was kind of sexual (sidenote: oh my god, I sound like that flute girl in American Pie) but not meant to be. I pointed it out to her and she laughed at it, as well as A.

After listening to some more music we decided to go downtown, that is to some pub. We considered our options - walking or driving? We thought that we're still able to drive, so M started the car. It was now night and the streets were completely empty. She drove very slowly and in the beginning on the wrong side of the road. We guided her with A, and somehow the driving felt like we were one mind all driving the car. The distance was luckily just about 500 meters. Amazingly M managed to park the car between two other cars very nicely.

I don't actually remember much about the pub, just that the environment change seemed so drastic again - once again as being in Truman Show, now just a new scene. We were kind of quiet, but it was very relaxing. I said occassionally something, but I remember hearing my voice to be terribly slow and dumb-sounding (which I don't wonder, after smoking those joints).

We went back to the car. I'm not sure anymore, but I think we smoked one last joint now. At this point it's a bit blurry to me. There was a nice meadow next to us, so we decided to put the tent up there, although there were houses nearby. We didn't bother to search for the tent poles so we just put our tent on the meadow, threw all our stuff which we needed for the night in and climbed inside. We decided to eat the other half of the mushrooms, which we also did.

No effects at all from the mushrooms. I roll a joint and we smoke it outside, although M opposed the idea at first, because she was feeling tired. A and me thought that it would be a good idea anyway, just to cheer us up, because we were now all coming a bit down. We smoked the joint in the freezing weather and went back inside to the car and listened to music.

M fell asleep very soon, but the mushrooms kept keeping me awake. I went to pee twice outside and check out if everything's safe around here, and A was apparently also awake, because she asked me always where I was going. I had also trouble sleeping because I was in the middle and I couldn't breath properly, because the roof of tent had no breathing holes and it was directly on my face. I decided to put my head out the tent. It was cold and stormy, but after a while I managed to fall a sleep.

The next morning I woke up to the barking of the dog. A woke up pretty much at the same time. A passer-by walked his dog and looked at me pretty curiosly. Shortly after that A also stuck her head out of the tent. Then another dog-walker came by and greeted us with 'Good morning'. Politely we answered him and continued to watch the meadow.

Afterthoughts: taking mushrooms opened and new reality to me. In the morning it all felt somehow a bit surreal, but I was feeling very good anyway, inspite of only sleeping 3.5 hours.

This new reality is hard to describe, but it's kind of another world, where you are completely free, happy and where you can enjoy about everthing and have now obligations. It also lead me to think about the purpose of my life, my future etc, which I found valuable. And basically the whole trip was very much fun, and I think I know A and M a bit better now. I'm very happy to have this experience.

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 24431
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 6, 2007Views: 13,355
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Mushrooms (39) : Glowing Experiences (4), Mystical Experiences (9), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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