Ps. Cubensis + Cannabis (very long and detailed)

[anima marinaio]

Substance(s)/Dose:

• -just under 7grams of dried cubensis mushrooms taken over the course of 30minutes
  - roughly 1.7 to 2grams of cannabis taken over a really long 13 to 15hour period (before and during the shroom trip)

Experience:

• 
  
  -i have around 15years on and off again experience with cannabis punctuated by getting my medicinal marijuana card this past august. since august of 2009 i've gradually found a balance between my tolerance and my budget and it's roughtly 1gram of top shelf cannabis per day. sometimes more (holidays, birthdays, etc.) and sometimes less (budget restraints, busy schedule).
  - my first entheogen experience was with salvia divinorum which i have done three times in the past two years.
  - my friend and i had only experimented with magic mushrooms twice before. the first time (my first shroom trip, his third) lasted about 7 to 8hours. we spent half the trip in to woods and the other half smoking cannabis and watching across the universe. it was so inspiring and beautiful we had to keep pausing the movie to scrape our blown minds of my walls and carpeting. it wasn't so much about the destination but the journey you know? anyway the second time was with the same friend but there was some outside drama (shitty neighbors) and some equipment malfunctions (we had some weak ass shrooms) so our trip was cut short to a mere 4 to 5hrs.

The Plan:

we had planned to spend some time at my place eating the shrooms and smoking the cannabis. then we were going to take a taxi to the subway and take the subway to go see laser floyd (a laser light show played in sync to pink floyd's "dark side of the moon" album) at the laserium (linked below). well so far so good we've made it onto the subway and the shrooms are just starting to kick in. it was my first time riding a subway and the fast pace and foreign atmosphere was much more daunting and frightening than it should have been. all in all though we arrived safely at the theater with enough time to smoke another joint in the alley.

Trip Report:

once we were finally seated and all the movement stopped my vision finally began to focus and swell around the objects surrounding me. i was seated in the middle of the back row of the theater. it was small (maybe only a couple hundred people at capacity) but the sound system was amazing. i sat back and was treated to an amazingly beautiful dance from the light fixture above my head. it was a five-sided star-shaped light fixture with five small light bulbs at the tips of five short cylindrical arms. the arms moved and swayed softly to a mixture of the soft ambient music emitting from the surround system i was directly in front of and the softer, subtler sounds of the Music of the Universe i was just starting to be able to hear. the ceiling swayed like waves in the ocean. waves punctuated by small dancing light fixtures. all was very calm and very serene. i was at peace.

a man gets on the speaker and announces in a very calm and soothing voice that we are at the laserium about to see a laser show set to pink floyd's dark side of the moon. he asks us to remain seated during the performance and please no smoking... of any kind (to laughter 'cause you know... it's laser floyd). the show starts and i'm telling you, this music was MADE for this show. literally. each song starts off a few seconds after the last one has already finished (so the audience can applaud and turn to each other and go "wow") and the beginning of almost every song begins with some quiet ambient music which swells to an increasingly louder and louder decibel (thus allowing people to shut up and stop talking). it was brilliant. growing up in los angeles i sometimes forget how much i've become desensitized to. how much beauty i have to miss in order to miss all the ugly as well. as silly as it may sound to some of you reading this: between the atmosphere, the enthogens, the amazing acoustics and the mind blowing laser light show display i was witnessing the most beautiful thing i had ever seen or heard anywhere ever. it opened my mind to so many wondrous and revolutionary ideas and emotions that i was forever changed by it.

but those are all stories for another day. you see, the night ended very badly for me and trying to figure out why has been in the back of my head for weeks now. with none of my friends being any more knowledgeable on the subject matter than myself i am left to ask my fellow psychonauts: what caused the panic and feelings of hysteria that ruined the evening? was it the hurried, unstoppable force of human traffic clogging the pedestrian walkways and subway that harshened my mood on the ride home? was it getting to the terminal and realizing that my "guide" or my "sitter" was even more fucked up and clueless than i was AND had less of an idea on how to get back home than i did? was it my neighbors (again with those guys fuck!) dropping by unexpectedly that did it to me? i don't know... what i do know is that after all that noise ended, when people had left and it was just me and my guide (who was now sober) i was well into my 9th hour of having visual hallucinations. now it wasn't the usual visual distortion i was accustomed to but more solid hallucinations. i began to experience a "fun-house" effect where everything around me was stretched far out of proportion. there was a point where the sidewalk doubled in width. four squares across instead of the usual two. i didn't like this because in my head i knew that if i saw four squares and everybody else could only see two squares then there was a good chance that everyone was going to see me swerving around bumping into trees and shit.

soon everything followed in suit with the sidewalk: trees and street lamps and walk signs all stretched to be double their normal width. i think at this point it was more that the cannabis was bringing it back hard and that i was well into my 10th hour and nobody we had ever heard of had ever tripped on shrooms for more than 8hours. whatever was brothering me was making me panic. instead of sitting back and enjoying the show i was stressing out. i was afraid that if every time i opened my eyes and all i saw were four lane sidewalks then all i would ever see would be four lane side walks. i became horrified at the notion of this lasting for days and me having to go to the hospital or telling my parents that i'm now insane.

when i was in that theater house i swear i ascended to a realm of understanding far above that of mortal men. and since not all of that understanding was in english i had to leave a lot of it behind because i couldn't fit it all inside my head along with my normal "me" personality (maybe literally maybe figuratively, you decide). learning to communicate in normal human terms again was proving to be a lot harder for me than it should have been. i felt that i had found a way to become disconnected from my normal time stream or at least, what i viewed as a timeline. that i could visit any part of my life and change it in any way i chose. i felt that i had reached the next stage of spiritual development. i felt that when we "die" we are able to see outside of our normal human perceptions and this is what allows us to cross over into the next stage of consciousness (and weather in your mind that means we go blank and cease to be or we experience some sort of afterlife or soul recycling or whatever you gotta admit that it kind of makes sense). i felt that i had reached this level of understanding and that i could move on whenever i wanted to. i decided to stay mostly because i'm a chicken shit and i thought that there was too great a chance i'd end up coasting the ethereal highways with my new mind while my body laid drooling in front of a heartbroken friends and family.

at the end of the night though i was plagued by returning thoughts of letting my mind slip down a spiral of insanity it would never recover from. let's face it: we all know at least one person who has used drugs to turn their mind into pudding. so we all know it's possible. i don't think that my fears are unfounded. what's really been troubling me is that a few days ago i was short on cannabis so i subsided on a small intake of resin and kief. i ended up having a kind of shroom flash back and within minutes i was staring at drastically distorted shapes and images. i immediately began to feel my mind slipping and was washed over with a wave of fear and anxiety. why? why do i fear the trip now? is it possible that i need to stay away from enthogens now? is it possible that i really can go insane? i've heard of cases where people using hallucinogens have psychotic breaks that can last for days or even be permanent. i've never been so upset on a drug experience before. how did something so positive and so beautiful turn out to be so haunted and frightening? is this death of the conscious mind i fear merely ego-death personified or is it something more? is it something i should fight and stay away from or is it something i should just let go of? do i take the trip further down the rabbit hole or do i finally decide that this is my stop; that i've seen enough? your thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated down below. i apologize for the rather long, rambling text but i had to get it all out. had to get it all down. this way, in my lengthy monologue, i've hopefully answered all questions but my own: where do i go from here?

http://www.laserium.com

 

[BrainEater]

let go of the anxiety, but also try to learn something from it like you learned after your trip. i give you a hint for the why question: maybe it has to do something with what you already seem to have learned. ask the question why did you let fear control you, instead of you controlling YOUR fear.

 

[anima marinaio]

i appreciate your comment BrainEater but my real fear is insanity. and i think the reason i let the fear control me is because going insane made perfect sense to me. it's always been a fear in my head that playing devil's advocate with my psychnautics says i'm going insane. all the pretty colors and emotions... even the very thoughts i have while under the effects of enthogens are all steps in the spiral downward to insanity. beautiful and entrancing though they are i've begun to feel with an increasing sense of certainty that these experiments with different psychedelics, as positive and educational as they've been, have been less of a spiritual growth for me and more of a destruction of my lucid mind. labotomy paitents are very sedated and happy too, after all.

it's just been so hard for me to accept that something that once showed me so much beauty and gave me so many great new thoughts, great new ideas... it's just hard for me to accept the fact that it's been killing me. killing my mind. but the more i focus on it, the more certain i am of my conclusion. it sucks.

 

[BrainEater]

if you fear too much goin insane or see the actual possibility as real as you DO, then i suppose you're right in taking a step back from psychadelic drug use. you are the best to judge what's good for you and what not. listen to yourself if you think it's good for you. respect yourself!!!! love yourself!!!

and well ..... what if you already were insane? you could be on the path back to sanity, and you could be on the path to more insanity .. i mean is there after all a limit to sanity or insanity or is there just relative sanes and insanes out there? i don't know.

anyways my suggestion is to plan trips better in the way that you choose setting more carefully and try to be aware better of what is called set which is a description of the influence-factor-of-the-experience, which is "you" and depending on how much you know yourself and care for yourself, the more easily will you hit the road in the direction of a comfortable psychadelic rollercoaster..


peace :weedman:

 

[anima marinaio]

yea i've been thinking a lot about it and about what you said:

my suggestion is to plan trips better in the way that you choose setting more carefully and try to be aware better of what is called set which is a description of the influence-factor-of-the-experience, which is "you" and depending on how much you know yourself and care for yourself, the more easily will you hit the road in the direction of a comfortable psychadelic rollercoaster

what i'll most likely end up doing is finding someone i can tell this to and have them stay off the enthogens for a session while i'm on them. this way if i really do end up going insane i can rest assured on my trip there that my body will be well taken care of back here. also in case i end up retarding myself a bit i'll have a written log as to why lol. and lastly, mostly, because this is the only way i'll know for sure. to do it again, at least one last time. accepting and preparing for the consequences is the best i can do at this point. it's the only way i'll relax; i just have to get back on the horse and try again. hopefully i'll prove myself wrong and be laughing about how scared i was "back then."

but then again, if i am the only person who really knows myself and i go and inadvertantly change myself without intent or knowledge of said change... then who would really know if i've changed other than myself?

 

[eel-ek-3-city]

Hello. I just recently reconnected with psychedelics through a salvia divinorum experience and I was searching this forum for something.. well anyway I can relate to the contemplation of the original poster so.. I'll try to write something down.

First of all the dose is quite heavy dont you think? Even more if you have taken shrooms only two times before.. I remember someone calling these doses heroic. Mckenna or someone. I've taken psilocybin somewhat 20 times over the years but my dose has never exceeded (is that the word? English isn't my native language) 3 grams. I've been taking it in a party setting where there's usually all kinds of 'crazy' things going on even without the shrooms so I've kept it pretty simple.

Another thing might be the planning of the trip. With that kind of dose I imagine you should make the setting more adjustable. By that I mean that if need be you can control the volume of sound and lighting.. temperature whatever. At first your plan sounds perfect. Shrooms.. lasers.. dsotm. But when you think about things like coming up in a subway and tripping in public + the pot I can see things getting hazy and discomforting. I would've smoked the pot by the end of the trip rather than all the way anyway but thats my thing. And 'asshole' neighbours I can imagine can only add to this allready built up anxiety. AND if you're guide is out there too it's probably hard for him/her to be able to give enough attention to your trip. 8)

As for the part about going insane I have to admit I share the same fear to some extent. For example when I smoked salvia divinorum some week ago.. for a 'moment' there I really thought I was completely insane but that was probably because I didn't remember ever smoking the plant. I was kind of fast to accept my alleged insanity.. maybe a bit too fast but as soon as I did it the fear was gone and I was left with nice euphoria and WEIRD hallucinations. Anyway this fear of mine isn't going away and I don't want it to. After all it's there to protect you. You just have to learn how to control it (wow that sounds cheesy).

What I would suggest to you is to integrate this experience to your everyday reality with time and thought and when the time is right.. well you know what to do.

+ Long and chronic use of cannabis can be the cause of these feelings too. I rarely smoke these days because of that.

 

[landisrebel]

lol it sound like u had a good time.

 

[BrainEater]

anima marinaio your idea is awesome!! try to trust your feelings more, trust in yourself and how you CAN do it!! BE just the change you want yourself to be. there's no hurry!! take comfort in finding out what you want to change in you, and how.
ground yourself in the now and even if you were alone, then you might find out, where your love has gone.

think about this: if you accept that insane part in you, if that exists, it might be easier to change it, if that's what you want.
love is strong, but i suppose it can be overshadowed by fear. if you lift the shadow gently, YOUR light may shine thru once again. and yeah... it's always nice to laugh and i think it's really really important to be able to laugh about yourself. if you can't do that, and you'll feel that, you'll know you have to work on yourself.

because can you always expect the joy to come from somebody else??? why not focus more on the joy within and build on that, what you can build on??

get to "know yourself", it's easy.


peace :weedman:

 

[anima marinaio]

a lot of time has gone by since by trip and i've had a lot of time to reflect. first of all, thanks to everyone for all the help and comments. much, much love and appreciation.

i do agree with eel-ek-3-city in that it was a very high dosage (and yes, your english was perfect). i decided to make it a high dosage because of my un-naturally high tolerance to all things fun. really, i think one of the many lessons i learned that night was that with mushrooms (as with all psychedelics) you really only get as high as you let yourself get and i REALLY let myself go that night.

the best way i can explain my hang up now is this: i felt that night that i had discovered a new power. the power to bend reality and travel between time. then i began to feel like i couldn't control my new power. everything i viewed became stretched out double wide and trying to explain how i felt was maddening. i felt like i was going insane.

i calmed myself by realizing that such a power would be god-like, and i was no god (that whole "you are your own god" idea was making things much, much worse). the original message i learned from that night (after much, much thought and conversation) was that the only power i had discovered, a power everyone in the world has, is the power to control how i PERCIEVE reality. and that excercising that power would in fact, make me literally - by definition - insane. a great trick to expieriment with when i'm 80yrs old in some retirement home but for now, i decided to just let it be.

however, a very religious person gave me a surprizingly psychonaut way to look at it so now i'm back to the drawing board on explaining it lol. i guess what happened to me that night will take a bit longer to digest than i had thought. the things i heard and saw and learned that night are very hard to put into words but... i'm learning

 

[Demahdi]

Hi Anima,
To be honest I personally find 7g dried a lot If I don't eat for 12 hours and take that much, I would trip out way longer then 8 hours too. It is normal to have an experience like that.
Just do less and keep it subtle man! Isn't 4g dry cubensis already quite much? To me it is, but maybe I'm not that experienced. Once I did it on sight, never again I took a whole bunch of big cubensis and made my cup of tea... I don't know how much dry it was, but it sure looked twice as much what I take now.
Things got quite wrong once I got wondering if this would ever go away, ... you're just overloading your brain and with such a high dose it expands your emotions to its maximum. As you become afraid, you can overpush your emotions and freak out -> bad trip. These fears should not be taken lightly when one is exposed to such an experience. Alway relax, remember the cubensis will wear off in time... Your body will break off the substance in time, it isn't one a timeschedule.
People can get insane from all kinds of trauma's, but insanity because of drugs is something you and only you have in hand. Take this fear as a lesson, 7g dry is too much for loud and spacy events. Or am I just not used to having that much?

 

[bdiddly1]

i cant handle smaller spaces(like a train)with a bunch of strangers when i'm tripping on mushrooms,feels like they are all staring at you,they all look wierd,i remember i went to a large funfair&it was hellish,there were security who loked like they were wearing make-up &they looked like evil dolls,aw man,never again(going to a f-fair that is!lol)