A study in mushrooms... in Mental Health

Magic mushrooms, that is.

Typing is funny. The letters on the screen, hilarious.

I am still aware of typos, at least.

Okay, so everything above this was written at approximately 9pm last night, September 12. It is now 8:48am, September 13. Still being aware of typos was the last thing I was capable of being aware of for several hours.

At first, I became hyper-aware of everything. Little things, colors, patterns, jumping out at me. My knees stopped functioning soon after and walking was amusing. Before long, I was lying in my bed with my eyes closed because reality was melting and I was melting with it. I couldn’t focus on anything at all. I was looking at artwork and it was like I had never seen it before. Everything started to look like a glitchy old black and white film reel or a badly-tuned TV station that kept going to static.

My mind was racing and I couldn’t grasp a single coherent thought. Words were screaming through my brain like an out-of-control freight train. It felt like ADHD on overload. It was not pleasant.

My cat was lying by me and she was the only thing that was real, even if I couldn’t look at her because she did not look like herself at all. All I had to do was reach out and touch her and, for just a moment, it was like I was yanked back down to earth and everything made sense again - until I opened my eyes and the world started melting again.

I went into it without any expectations, really. I’ve never had shrooms before. I knew it would be different from LSD and boy, was it. I don’t recall ever having the kinds of racing thoughts I had last night while on acid. With acid, all I can remember of my thoughts is how clean they were, how clear and coherent, how everything seemed to make perfect sense even while hallucinating. Last night, nothing made sense. I didn’t make sense, the world didn’t make sense, my thoughts certainly didn’t make any sense.

My entire body hurt. My neck got incredibly tense, my head started to throb, and every joint in my body was on fire. I felt like I was being pulled apart limb from limb while also being crushed under a great weight. I spent a good bit of my time in bed doing physical therapy exercises to prevent another exploding head incident - yes, hello, ER doctors, I ate some magic mushrooms and my head is exploding again, can you help me?

I painted. Watercolor on paper is amaaaaaaazing on shrooms, and I could say that was probably the only part of the experience that I might consider even better than LSD. I was just using standard watercolors but, on the paper, they were magical, sparkly, almost alive in the way the colors moved in the water. The painting I did during the peak was a bunch of random nothingness because I was just watching the colors dance. Then I did 2 paintings at the end that were just as fascinating but in a totally different way. I’m really pleased with painting on shrooms and it will definitely be a thing I explore more in the future.

Pretty sure I just had too much for a first dose, but I’ll confess that I was looking to get totally obliterated so, in a sense, I was successful. I think, with a smaller dose, I could create some really incredible art.

I slept really well and am noticing a surprising lack of aches and pains today. My body feels almost fluid, all of my joints well-lubricated. No major headache, no shooting pains, no feelings of being ripped apart or crushed. Surprisingly relaxed, no muscle tension anywhere other than a bit in my neck, which is normal because this is just who I am now - the girl with the sore neck.

Overall, not a horrible experience, but not the best, either. It was pretty overwhelming, my mind racing and the world melting but, once that feeling passed, everything was much better and I was able to walk around, make myself some peanut butter toast, and paint some pictures. I will experiment more with this in the future.

Last updated September 13, 2020