"Fucked By The Purple Octopus"

   Well, it’s been a long time since my last trip report, which was in April of 2004. Since then I’ve had some real weird experiences with trying to take mushrooms. The first time I tripped it was only on 1gm dried of Golden Teacher mushroom. Not much. I had some minimal experience then you can read that trip report it’s called “And away we shroom”. If you can find it in the archives (Level 1 trip circa April 2004.)

   Shortly after that trip every time I took the dried ground shrooms in capsules, I would get very very angry and agitated for some reason. My set and setting weren’t that bad but I think it might be because my depression was not being controlled at that time with medication. One of the big fears I had was that my meds (Effexor 375mg, Risperdal 2mg) would interfere with the tripping experience. That being said after taking them I threw them all away from the bad experience. I tried cultivating some afterwards but I couldn’t get them to grow so I gave up on mushrooms and tripping all together.

   Fast forward to April 2006, two years later. I got the itching to try shrooming again this time with a lot more inspiration and advice from listening to tapes by Terence McKenna and The Shroom Wizard. I wanted to use these medicines as tools for spiritual growth not just to “feel good” to take away my pains. So I again began the serious study of The Shroomwizard’s new cultivation tek. (See www.shroomwizard.com). I found out how to make the shrooms grow and finally got them growing. These were of the Hawaiian Strain.

   So about 2 weeks ago I picked about 221gms of shrooms wet from my trays. I finally felt this past Saturday would be a good as day as any to trip. So I got myself together and around 9pm started the procedure. I first drank a warm cup of hot chocolate 15 minutes before tripping to enhance the effects and abstained from eating oily and fatty foods all day.

   So I started up the PS2 Sonic the Hedgehog game I rented at Blockbuster and drank the hot chocolate. 15 minutes later I had a bowl of 5gms of mushrooms (dried) sitting in front of me and began eating them. They were almost 100 percent dried but were still slightly soft. The first few went down ok but upon taking a few in my mouth at the same time to chew them I almost gagged so I said fuck this and remembered I had a hot dog bun left over from eating hot dogs the other day. So I heated a hot dog bun up in the microwave for ten seconds and then spread some hot Mr. Mustard on the bun, put all the shrooms on it and then doused it with more mustard and Texas Pete’s hot sauce. This “Shroom Dog” actually tasted pretty darn good. As a side note I was only eating caps, which were small anyway that all fit on the bun very easily. In the future if I had bigger caps I would just cut them up and do the same thing on the bun. I still have several grams dried of stalks to try another time as another shroom dog.

   So after eating the dog I continued to play Team Sonic, which was ok. I really wanted to play Coliseum that I also rented but thought the killing and blood of the game wouldn’t help my mindset for tripping. As opposed to little furry creatures capturing rings in a trippy worlds to begin with. About 15 minutes later I stared to feel a weird aching feeling in my stomach and began to get tired. I then turned off the game and TV and climbed into my bed to experience whatever was going to happen in total darkness with my eyes closed. But part of me didn’t really think this would happen, I just felt tired and was really sort of going to bed for the night.

   I don’t know how long I was lying in the bed actually. Then next time I remember looking at the clock it was 10:55pm almost an hour and a half after I took the shrooms! I was amazed as I have read it can take up to that long to start tripping. But at this time I still didn’t know I was tripping, I just felt heavy (which in hindsight I guess is a sign that you are tripping). I got up to go to the bathroom. I turned on the light and sat on the bowl and just sat there and my eyes just sort of fell on the towels on the rack in front of me. I normally space out on the bowl to begin with but upon looking at these towels I noticed they were moving! They were white and it was as if the surface of the towel kept dripping into itself, melting like a river down into itself. I did a double take and was very amazed to say the least.

   Now you have to understand something about me. I am now still a very heavily medicated guy for depression. 375mg Effexor, 2mg Risperdal. and NOW also Wellbutrin 300 mg. Whereas 2 years ago I wasn’t on the Wellbutrin and this was the key I think to my successful trip, (which is far from me explaining, but back to that shortly). Back in April of 2004 my depression or really chemical imbalance was starting to get worse, out of control really. The Effexor I was on was beginning to have less and less of an effect on it. Sort of like how a caged animal begins to get too strong for it’s cage and starts to begin to break out. So my whole introduction to shrooms back then was influenced by my ever-increasing depression. Actually and ironically this is exactly why I wanted to do shrooms at the time. To escape my depression. I actually wanted to grow poppy plants to harvest and smoke opium but that was too difficult to do and shrooms soon caught my imagination as something viable to try.

   So anyway after I had my trip failures in 2004 and after giving it up, I really began reaching the limits of my sanity and had a nervous breakdown that fall. LUCKILY my psychiatrist prescribed me a new medication called Wellbutrin, which was supposed to enhance the effects of the Effexor and give a slight stimulant effect. Thanks to sheer luck upon getting prescribed this medication I made a complete turnaround and recovery. Total remission of the depression, I was back on my feet and actually reconnected with my family and got a second job at Starbucks, which was really awesome. That was over a year ago and brings me up to 2006. I am still in great condition and really felt pumped to try shrooming as a spiritual exercise this time around, not as an escape. SO as I said I was able to cultivate and try them. Well, the only last fears I had were 1) I would have an angry agro trip again like before 2) it wouldn’t work at all 3) the worst case scenario I would fall back into depression as a result of this tripping. I was planning on taking a lot more this time, which as I said was 5gms, dried.

   I am telling you all this because I want you to understand, during this trip I was pretty detached, like witnessing it all from a removed point of view. This is partly to do from my medication. It sort of numbs your senses and emotions. So I was sort of apathetic during the whole trip. I wanted you to know that because it sets the mindset for my trip and is important in relation to the questions I will raise at the end of this report.

   Anyway, not to steal my own thunder as it were, I shall say the trip was a total success. I will explain the rough sequence of events as follows. Actually I could sort of think this a failure to a certain degree because the trip wasn’t as spiritual as I had wanted it to be but I will explain that shortly as well.

   Back to our story. So it was around 10:55pm an hour and a half after taking the shrooms and there I am sitting on the toilet bowl staring at my towels melting into rivers in front of my eyes. I stared at them for a long time. I was just processing it happening. As I have just said, my meds make me very detached from emotions to begin with so my surprise or “freak out factor” was very low. I was thereby able to just be absorbed into this observation purely mentally...more so I would call it fascination. Yes I was very fascinated, yet unemotional at the same time.... sort of like a Vulcan. Very Mr. Spockish.

   Little did I neither realize nor know at the moment that everything was a show. Everywhere I looked but more on that in a second. So I’m sitting on the bowl and checking this out and feeling really heavy now. This is where I began to equate this heaviness with being on something/tripping. Strangely enough after checking that out I decided to go back to bed. Not to trip more in my head but to go back to sleep for some unknown reason. In hindsight I thought this odd. I mean this was a breakthrough...I won! I was tripping finally! But to my numbed self it was no big deal at the moment.

   So I went back to bed. Now, I’ve always wondered if the visual images I would conjure up in my head during normal waking consciousness change at all while on mushrooms. I found it did and it didn’t. I lay there in bed and images kept coming into my minds eye, pictures not geometric fluorescent shapes, just more mental thought pictures. and it wasn’t until I started to see this HUGE purple tentacle thing appear that I thought there was something more going on. The movie that was playing in my mind was as if I was laying on the floor of a room, a lab of some sorts. This room was completely filled with water like a fish tank. I was naked and was laying on the floor looking up and this is when I saw the big purple mass with octopus tentacles float above me at the ceiling.. All I know was I wanted to merge with this thing.

   At this time in bed I was beginning to feel REAL HORNEY. I just was feeling that way...strange that I was cause my meds usually kill my libido. But I was feeling funky. So with this I wanted to merge with this purple mass so I allowed it embrace its tentacles and me floated down onto my sexual organs and formed a solid connection. Then I asked/allowed it to merge with my brain. I figured my brain was the next best thing to commune with this thing. I saw it had a yellow yes, like a cats eye. So I basically wanted to fuck this thing mentally and physically was how horney I was. This was good times. lol

   To my mind no data exchange took place at this time, just a connecting. I tried to start to ask it questions but wasn’t getting any answers at all. Things just proceeded. I felt no malice or coercion. It was completely consensual. Though it was my desire that kept it going. I have never had anything like this happen to me in my life. Still I was emotion less, just observing (again do to the drugs I’m on that numb my emotions). I equate this experience with the shroom trying to make contact with me. Which is a good thing I guess.

   A little side note here. I know that set and setting are crucial to tripping. Here’s the first of several questions. How does one know when one is “good enough” or in the right headspace enough to trip? I mean I thought to myself well tonight I want to trip, this as happy as I’m gonna get but...I’m not ecstatically happy. I mean I feel ok. I still feel my numbed out self. But you know not amazingly well. I had a concern this might not have been good enough to cultivate a good trip, obviously it did. It seems if someone is just “baseline” ok, you know neutral, stable, there, ok. Things will go well? That is what happened to me. I was level and BALANCED. I wonder if that is actually better than “happy” for I did not feel “happy” before this trip. I wonder if the key word is “stability”. Of course it all is relevant probably, in as whatever your state of mind before the trip will be primer for the trip experience. I wonder if I was happier or “not on my meds” (that numb my emotions), if I would have even a better trip? Anyone?

   So there I am lying on the bed fucking this alien. I for some reason just decide to get up. I felt a little hungry but thought if I ate I would decrease the trip. In hindsight, I found this not to be the case. I feel once you get the shroom in you and it starts going, you are going, no stopping it. I think it’s the food that you take “with” the shroom initially that will affect things as well as what is also in your stomach or not in your stomach for that matter that will affect the potency of the effects. So instead of eating I sat in my computer chair, which is right next to the kitchen and just stared at the floor out of habit not out of looking for anything trippy, for at this time I still didn’t know that it didn’t matter where I looked “everything would be a trippy show”. So it was like I was having these small surprises pop up at me. So I’m zoning out as usual staring into space as when I think and my eyes happen to fall on the tiles on the kitchen floor. These tiles are sort of off white with imitation marble streaks in them.

   So I am staring at them without staring at them if you know what I mean, I mean I’m looking at them but my eyes are out of focus while thinking and then I saw it. These marble patterns began to shift off of the floor! It was like they floated up off the floor and were sitting like a hologram there in space and these holograms would shift to the left and right. Again in my detached way I thought this interesting and then thought hey let me get one of my shirts that has a strange pattern on it and throw it on the floor here to see what happens. So I got a shirt, which was tan and had some boxes on it and threw it there. It settled on the floor and the wrinkles looked really solid. I thought it was not a good color so I got a light blue farmer Ted sort of shirt, flannel I mean. Threw it there same thing with the wrinkles then lastly I threw a Hawaiian like shirt there and nothing that much changed. I still thought it cool though. The shirts did sort of seem like they were breathing.

   So I’m sitting there. I then get a desire to take a bath. I KNOW I KNOW this is so stupid one should never mix hallucinogens with water. VERY STUPID thing to do. BUT I was VERY aware of this stupidity and was going to be EXTREMELY careful in the tub. I regularly take baths. I took a bath the last time I tripped in 2004 as well. So I get out of the chair and started the water running for the tub. The next thing I know I notice the water droplets on the tiles behind the water faucets spring out at me. I laughed and thought wow EVERYTHING wants to get my attention.

   The tub filled up and I got in, the warm water felt real good. Might I add, I felt real good. I felt so totally at peace and centered through all these experiences it was really incredible. So I’m sitting in the tub and realize the tiles are coming out off the wall and floating sideways, I thought this was cool. I caught myself looking at the situation and my body as if from a third person’s point of view. I was still horny so I tried to jerk off in the tub but it didn’t help. I grabbed the soap, that helped and before I knew it as I shot my load while laying on my back and gave out the most insane cackle laughter I think I have ever done in my life. This got me laughing and into more laughing and more laughing and there I was in the tub with jism all over me howling in laughter.. I then realized that the neighbors in the apartments down the hall could probably hear this maniacal laughter coming from my apartment at 12 o’clock in the morning and that made me even laugh harder!

   After about 5 minutes of this I stopped, still giggling as I cleaned up and let the water run out of the tub. I got up very slowly and put on some boxers. Then for some reason I wanted to see what music would sound like while tripping. So I put on some Ladytron to groove too. The music was perfect. I then instinctively went for my Aleister Crowely THOTH deck to see what the trump cards would look like. I sat on my bed Indian style and turned the lamp on to view the cards. They were amazing. Each card was alive as soon as I stared at it. I recall looking at the Tower card first. It looked alive. I wanted to stare at each card forever but made myself go through the cards sequentially laying them out and looking and comparing them.

   I often would find myself entranced with one of the cards and hearing the music play in what sounded like multi-dimensions, it put me into all that I could describe was another place a trance. I sat transfixed, literally frozen with some cards in my left hand and some toilet paper scrunched in my right hand. I took note of how still I was and how pleasant it felt. I just grinned and grinned and grooved and grooved. I would zone out intermittently between the cards, the edge of my futon mattress and the desk between the wooden posts of my futon frame, just marveling at the perspective. It was like the 3 dimensions I was looking at flattened out into sheets and things in the background floated apart from things in the foreground. Truly entrancing. I marveled at how much fucking fun I was having in my small studio apartment all alone on a Saturday night!

   I must interject at this point. I am want to lay down and stare into space or sit in my car in parking lots just staring and thinking at the view. This is just something I do. Here, now tripping I felt the hallucinations were the perfect “entertainment” for someone like me. Someone who just stares at things and thinks anyway. This was like a series of little shows put on for me wherever I looked. Each show grabbing my attention. There was always the feeling that upon staring at point A I would fear if I took my focus away from it the hallucination would end but amazingly when upon staring at point B the same transfixation/enjoyment would come right back to me. Pure pleasure with everything I looked at. An infinity of shows

   I stared at the cards and sat on the bed for about a half an hour. I then just, closed my eyes. This helped me tune into the AMAZING music even more...such perfect tripping music. And I became introspective and what appeared were dynamic ever moving underwater octopus creatures continually moving into themselves and along in lines. They just didn’t stop. Everything was mostly pastel aqua blue or green or whitish blue. It was funny at times I saw eyes on these creatures and they would bug out it was so funny how they’d get big and small and crazy looking. This meditation went on for about 10 minutes. I then felt like lying back, which I did and upon my back hitting the mattress I was so comfortable. Like more comfortable than I’ve ever been before in my life and I just grinned and grinned and listened to the music and saw more underwater octopus creatures constantly moving along and along. I laid this way until the music stopped.

   When the music stopped and while still lying there I got a chance to listen to the silence and what was in it. Thought upon thought just came rushing into my mind. And with each thought was just pure pleasure. It was like each thought was like an accomplishment or exercise whereby upon completion the result was utter satisfaction and deeper pleasure. Now can you fucking imagine this...thoughts after thoughts just creating pure pleasure. Of course I was having a continual dialogue with myself about everything and anything. I think at this time I tried to communicate with the shroud intelligence again to no avail. It was like I was being showed all this.

   In my analysis I feel that all these experiences were being given to me as a reward of some sorts of having gone what I went through to finally get to this point to trip with the mushroom. Through so much failure and hard work growing them I felt a show was being put on for my benefit. That the communication I was receiving was just a constant “hey look what I can do” type of thing the mushroom was doing for me. This was fine with me. I have to say I did want more of a spiritual connection you know big cosmic answers to questions about my life being presented. But in the final analysis I think what I got was what I needed at this time.

   So I was getting hungry. I got some Starbucks Mudpies early in the evening and went to grab one. I got up went to the fridge and noticed the floor was still shifting in marble patterns. I got the mudpie and opened the package. When I looked at the chocolate pie after I bit it, it appeared to be alive and breathing like some sort of thing. I smiled and just stared at the chocolate beginning to melt on my fingers. I watched the floor and ate away. It tasted good, nothing special though. I think after I ate I thought it would be interesting to turn on the TV or video game to see what it would look like. But upon turning on Sonic the Hedgehog, I immediately said no and turned it off. Tonight wasn’t the time to trip to TV or video games.

   I thought about shaving after being in the tub during the evening but totally said no to myself about it. I started to truly realize how you should never shave or drive a car or operate heavy machinery while tripping! It was time to take my nighttime medication. I could barely read the label and it took me about a minute to figure out how many pills to take. Even after taking them I suspected I might be wrong. But then I told myself it was ok to just take two pills. It was getting late. At this time it was about 2:20 in the morning. I had been tripping for 5 hours and it felt like 10 minutes.

   So I got back to my bed, put the tarot cards away, turned off the light and just lay there. Several times during the trip I thought to write down my experiences but I really didn’t want to so I didn’t. To my knowledge I am remembering exactly everything that happened on this trip.

   This experience has taught me a lot about myself and the reality of tripping for me and my situation. Honestly the thing that most amazed me was that I tripped at all. I sincerely thought my meds were going to block or interfere with the experience. Quite frankly, all things considered, I feel with the new addition of taking 300mg of Wellbutrin this time around as opposed to not having it last time helped to facilitate this truly pleasurable and mellow trip.

   I believe that the Wellbutrin has brought stability and peace to my tormented soul. I believe this is what set the template up for this good experience. I say good only in relation to what I previously have experienced. I think it could be safe to say this was a good experience. A success and not a failure. The next thing that this got me thinking about was wondering if my mindset and setting really did make a difference.

   I’m not talking about the good template I was just referring to. I mean with my attitude. I wonder if I had played the Coliseum game before tripping with fighting and stuff., would that have altered this experience? This experience felt so consistent and so strong and if so it blows my mind to think how much power we have the capability to unleash within the mushroom. If it is up to us, to have the right attitude to “unlock” the shroom what implications that says about this chemical. I can see how one would believe the mushroom would truly be alive with this type of symbiotic potential relationship between user and drug.

   I don’t want to have a bad trip. I’m not asking for one. Though it is curious to me what a psychedelic bad trip would be like. I had anger and pain originally when I took the shrooms 2 years ago. I don’t feel that was truly a psychoactive bad trip. I believe more so that something psychological was going on and wrong. It didn’t feel shroom influenced now that I can say it in hindsight by feeling what it feels like to be in the grip of the mushroom. Some say bad trips are the best trips where you learn the most about yourself. I’m not so sure I agree and quite frankly am tired of any more pain and suffering to be had in my life, so I’ll take learning from the good trips any day over the bad.

   Well, I hope you all enjoyed my journey. I know some of it had a little bit TMI (too much information). But so what. Does it really matter? I have found upon analysis of all the trip reports that the majority of people who submit trip reports to shroomery.org are level 3 trips. It is a bell curve. Most people have few level 1 trips, more people have level 2 then even more have level 3, then it goes back down, less people having level 4 trips and even less people having level 5 trips. I felt my trip was a level 3.

   In examining what could have happened more and what could have happened less. It makes me really wonder about a few things. I took 5 grams dried. Does this then mean if I took any less I’d have had a level 1 or 2 trip and if I was to take more than 5gms dried I’d have a level 4 or 5 trip? Do set and setting affect the ultimate trip level you will have? And also is this strain dependent? I took Hawaiian strain shrooms. Would I have had a different/higher level trip experience taking 5 grams of another strain? I have about 5 different strains waiting to be cased and I am going to experiment with these exact questions. Honestly 5gms dried is one hell of a dose. I wonder if my meds require me to take more to just get mid line (level 3) affects?

   I don’t think I want to go higher than 5gms dried with any other strain yet as to form a comparison across strains to compare and gauge my experiences I’ve already had accordingly. If anyone knows of the potency of strains I’d be happy to know. I have Hualta, Mazatec, Costa Rican, Malabar, and Puerto Rican to try. And if all shrooms are relatively the same potency does this inevitably lead me to conclude that for me, more is better?

   Thank you for taking the time to read this trip. I plan on entering all my experiences here. If you would like to contact me directly to discuss this trip or about anything to do with shroom cultivation and philosophy please feel free to contact me at winwinscenario@juno.com

                                                             Mr. Dionysus

PS - I am Male, 35 years old, 5’8”, 225lbs

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