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Euphoria and Insane Depression
Mushrooms
by Gaj
Citation:   Gaj. "Euphoria and Insane Depression: An Experience with Mushrooms (exp31349)". Erowid.org. Jul 29, 2006. erowid.org/exp/31349

 
DOSE:
  oral Mushrooms (dried)
    smoked Cannabis (plant material)
BODY WEIGHT: 110 lb
I had received these mushrooms from a friend of mine hoping I'd have the kind of amazing trip I had always heard people talk about where genius thoughts surface and incredible, detailed hallucinations occurred. My parents were gone for the night and into the next day so it was a now-or-never kind of deal. I figured that I probably wouldn't need a sitter because I thought I would have at least a little control over the things that were happening. I prepared myself, made some tea to clear up my sinuses and relax my senses, I listened to some pleasant, calm music and sat in darkness to the point where I had that clear-headed, ready for action kind of feeling.

I admit, I was nervous holding the mushrooms in my hand seconds away from popping them in my mouth. I just figured what ever happens, happens. But I was determined to have a good trip. So I chewed them up one at a time and washed them down with some orange juice (I heard it was popular among the shroomers).

It took longer than I expected for the shrooms to take effect; about two hours after I had taken them I started to realize that for the past hour or so, things were so much different. I would lean up against walls or windows and have the feeling that I was just melting into them. I was talking on the phone with my friend D and I was holding the phone in a way that my thumb was touching the side of my face and as I was talking to her my thumb just started going into my cheek as if I were a failure of a clay sculpture that it's maker had decided to ball up and start over with. So I plucked my thumb out of my face and ran to a mirror to make sure there wasn't a thumb-size hole in the side of my face, and when I saw that there wasn't I just laughed about it.

Every object in my house seemed to have life in it. I felt pity for a drooping flower. I started petting this rug because it's colors and designs seemed so playful and puppy-like... Not too long after that same rug started slithering around my house, acting a bit like a slug. It amazed me.

It was a beautiful day, it had been raining for the past few days and the grass was green and wet and the clouds were dark. It started raining and it was just so breath-taking because I saw each sparkling drop of rain as it fell from the sky to the earth. The grass started turning greener and the trees seemed have a purple hue in their brown bark, everything was just so beautiful.

I started viewing my own life from a different perspective, everything was great and I had this feeling of euphoria; nothing could bother me. I had it in my head that no matter how many bad times a person can have in their life it can still be so beautiful and suddenly I wasn't afraid of anything! It just felt so great. Later I discovered that the only reason I wasn't afraid of anything was because there was nothing in the area that moment to be afraid of.

I had been sitting outside for a while, just smoking some pot, still tripping on the mushrooms, living life as it came and just feeling great! Then, through the trees, I saw what looked like a police car come down the street that turns onto the street my house is on (and it's the only house on the street). I started to get tense, fearing that [what looked like] the police car would turn onto my street, and to my horror it did.

Suddenly I was thrown into an intense and uncontrollable panic and I hurried to the back of my house to get out of site because I thought they were there looking for me like I was some escaped convict. Everything that had once been so beautiful and pleasant seemed so grim and hostile. The trees around my house were so towering and terrifying and the rain clouds seemed to look more like storm clouds and the wet dirt was like sticky mud.

I heard the car's wheels running over the gravel road each rock impacting another making a crunching sound that I could hear so clearly. The car when past my house, it's sound to the other side of my ear and I couldn't find it. It was like it was invisible, driving around me in circles trying to confuse my before it pounced on me like a cougar.

I ran into my house and tried to calm down but I was still spinning and I felt so small. Every object seemed to zoom away from me, and the hallways seemed to stretch millions of miles and the living room floor was just a barren badland. Each movement I made felt so mechanical like there was no feeling in me at all. Pretty soon I started to lose all my senses one after another...

I went blind and deaf and it was just me and the infinite lengths of terrible thoughts, each on-coming thought worse than the previous. I fell into this intense depression; I just had the feeling that everything was so pointless and I lost my love for everything that I had once loved.

Each action was just an electrical signal from my brain (which seemed more like a mother board and I was just a computer) sent to my limbs to slave yet another pointless action. Everything had lost it's meaning, they were all just another thing to see, nothing special about them at all.

So I went and did some laundry and took a shower, still feeling like a machine; no sense of duty, I was just doing things, not thinking I'd actually get anything accomplished. I was in a dreamworld... Actually it was more like a nightmare. I felt like a skipping record just going on and on and on forever and the only way I'd ever stop and get away was if someone took the needle off. I started feeling extremely suicidal thinking of the metaphor of the skipping record and wanting to take the needle off, for that was the only way this living hell would end. I just wanted to die.

My system started to shut down, my mechanical movements ceased and I just went numb right there in the shower. Everything had just stopped suddenly and I thought I was dying, but there was still the feeling of uselessness. By dying I had gotten nothing more accomplished, I just performed another pointless action.

I stood there in the shower for a very long time, I'm not sure exactly how long, but it had been two hours since I ran inside from the cop car. I had finally snapped out of it, my brain started working again and my mind was flooded with so many thoughts. But when I stepped out of the shower, I wasn't normal. I wasn't depressed, but I felt like I had just been reborn in [still the same, but] a totally different world... I still felt that there was no meaning in whatever I did. I just stood in the shower longer searching my mind for something I could hold onto, because I thought I had driven myself to insanity.

And suddenly something clicked, I had found meaning again, because I actually was searching for something, I did have a goal and I could get something accomplished.

I stepped out of the shower feeling fresh. I looked like shit, and I had a terrible headache, but I still felt so great for some reason.

Since then, I have a new-found appreciation for art and natural beauty. I guess one could say that I discovered a new way to love, but certainly not enlightenment. But all in all, it was worth it.

Exp Year: 2004ExpID: 31349
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 29, 2006Views: 7,027
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Mushrooms (39) : Difficult Experiences (5), Depression (15), First Times (2), Alone (16)

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