On January 17, 1998, myself and a few friends decided to embark on a group mushroom voyage. There were six of us all together. I prepared with a 24 hour fast. Four of us drank a tea, the other two chose to ingest their mushrooms powdered and mixed with orange juice. The tea was made with 11 grams of mushrooms, the juice of one large lemon, 2 cups of warm water and two orange spice tea bags. The mushrooms were ground into fine powder and placed in a container, to which the other ingredients were added. The mixture was then shaken vigorously and allowed to sit a few minutes. We then strained out the solids and split the tea more or less evenly. Each of us got roughly 2.5 g worth of mushrooms. Of the two who didn't drink the tea, one ate 7 grams and the other ate 4.

After ingesting our sacraments we shut off the lights and lay on the floor to await the effects. I had never experimented with tea before, and I was a little worried that it wouldn't work. When it did start working I was relieved. As the mushroom effects began to manifest I began feeling really happy. I was on the verge of laughing out loud. Instead, I just lay there grinning and feeling great.

I was alert for any signs of nausea, but it never manifested. My stomach was a little touchy, but I suspect this was as much from the 1/4 lemon I ingested as anything else. This is in marked contrast to my previous experiences, which generally involve medium to gut wrenching nausea. This had a very light body load. I felt the urge to move around, and was able to do a headstand and some rolls, which were really fun. I think the lack of nausea was due to the fact that my stomach didn't have to digest lots of fibrous mushrooms, but it could have been dose related as well, since I usually take a higher dose. I intend to explore tea as a method of ingestion in the future, with both high and low doses.

My visuals weren't as impressive as higher doses, which is to be expected. I got very involved with the woodgrain on a closet door. It was intensely beautiful and it led me to think about how much beauty is around us, constantly ignored. With eyes closed I had a tendency to slip into a light trance and begin visualizing my thoughts. This was cool, but it never attained the degree of involvement I get on higher doses, and wasn't nearly as impressive in the scope, amount of detail, etc.

I happened to look at my foot at one point, and it appeared very distorted. It looked thick, inhuman, almost abstract. It didn't seem connected to me in any real way. I found it mildly amusing, as I usually do with such body distortions.

Sounds seemed to echo. For the first time on mushrooms, I felt the urge to listen to music, but didn't out of respect for the others around me (especially the high dose journeyers). I would like to explore that stimulus in the future. Early on I heard the familiar "mushroom music", weird buzzing noises that seem to weave around each other in complex patterns. It was quieter than usual, and at times was more "sensed" or imagined than heard.

I felt very in touch with my body throughout. If anything, I was hyperaware, since I was very much on the lookout for signs of nausea. I felt great, and had the urge to move around, walk, dance or drum. Basically, I had a lot of energy and felt like doing something with it. I did do some stretches and headstands.

Two and a half or three hours into it I smoked some syrian rue. After the first big hit I felt it as a sort of rippling sensation that moved through me. I smoked a total of 4 or 5 hits. I noticed an increase in visuals, especially in the complexity and amount of movement present in the patterns I saw. I had to lie down after I finished smoking it, and I soon entered the deepest trance of this particular trip. The rue changed the trip qualitatively in a way that is hard to explain. It made it weirder. It also made me more aware of my body, and made me feel heavy.

The main effects of the rue were short acting, lasting about 20 minutes. I smoked some more, to lesser effect. The residual of the rue lasted for the rest of the trip. After smoking rue the second time I did a balloon of nitrous. It gave me entrance to the flanged, swirling nitrous world, but was much less impressive than previous mushroom/nitrous experiences, probably because it was at the tail end of the trip.

For the most part, we were all in our own worlds. My thoughts touched on the others present several times, wondering how their trips were going. Afterwards, I found that one of my companions had thoughts and feelings very similar to my own throughout the trip, so apparently we were at least partially on the same wavelength. I feel that if everyone had been on an equal dose, there would have been more interaction. As it was, those on lesser doses didn't want to disturb those on the higher doses.

After we were all more or less down, we sat around and discussed our trips a little while smoking some cannabis. Everyone had a positive experience, though our trips were all very different (with a few exceptions).

At this level the experience was more or less generic low dose psychedelic, though it still had a definite shroomy feel. It was warm, beautiful and mellow, much like 2CB. It was less intense than I expected, more what I would expect 1 or 1.5 grams to be like. Of the others that drank the tea, two reported strong experiences and two (including me) reported mellow experiences. I do not know if we got the "small glasses" or if other factors were involved. I wasn't disappointed in any way, however. In fact, I was somewhat relieved to find I could have a mellow mushroom trip, considering that my previous lower dose experiment (at 3 grams) was nearly equal to a 5 gram trip in intensity in every way. I intend to explore the lower doses more in the near future (though I will continue to do high dose explorations regularly).

I feel this was a positive introduction to group experiences with mushrooms. I definitely will be doing more of them in the future. Next time, I will attempt to have everyone on similar dosage levels, as I feel this would have been a more typically "group" experience had we all been at the same level. I was also delighted to find I could have a mushroom trip without nausea. All in all a good trip.