This is a ‘Psychedelic Trip Report’ for my magic mushroom experience during my visit in May.
5 May 2008
I bought two packs of Hawaiian mushrooms, one from Tatanka and one from Innerspace (safety note – that’s a very strong dose!) The guy in Innerspace wished me luck, and I headed back to eat the mushrooms in my bizarre Egyptian room at the
Hotel de Filosoof.
On my previous trip I’d scoffed a box of Hawaiians in one go and that had turned out to be a bit too intense, as anyone who read the report will appreciate. To avoid this I checked back into my notes from the trip before and decided to repeat the timing of the doses I’d used then. This was my mushroom plan, a piece of paper with a dosing schedule and the following instructions:
0 mins – ¾ box
55 mins – ¼ box
1hr 15mins – ½ box
1hr 30mins – ½ box
- Keep calm and relaxed
- Take careful notice of visuals
- Do not mess with windows
- Be quiet!
- Do not use phone
One of my nightmare scenarios would be making an ill-advised phone call to work or my relatives during the peak of the trip...
Armed only with an unused school exercise-book, a couple of biros, an ipod with carefully selected music and a few munchies, I prepare to re-enter the strange world of the hotel-bedroom tripper. As preparation, I write myself some questions every few pages in the book, such as “What visual effects are you experiencing now?” to remind me to write down what I’m seeing.
The notes that I made in my notepad at the time are in
blue, the rest is my explanations and random musings. Note - CEV = closed eye visuals. A lot of my notes refer to what I was seeing when I closed my eyes.
19:00 Chewing about two-thirds or ¾ box Hawaiian Mushrooms
It’s hard to estimate exactly as the mushrooms are a variety of sizes.
19:16 ..painting on the ceiling – suddenly resolved itself into a 3D image
This is what I was looking up at from my bed during the trip – the lamp hangs directly over the bed.
19:18 First noticeable feelings….jumpy, nervous basically, but like a chemical push
19:22 Everything still seems relatively normal. Probably not for long. Feeling hungry, feel warmer
19:29 Little dots appearing in vision….small white specks of light. Colour of duvet seems to bleed into the white of the paper
19:30 A little nervous. Feel sensation of buzzing
19:32 Can perceive patterns of green lights on my hand and on the paper…
19:34 Hands cold and clammy. Mental state slowly relaxing. Change in perception of physical body
I noticed a strange metallic taste in my mouth, for one thing.
19:37 Phase-noise collaborators. Image of a generator-type trailer but stylised with simplified colours, stripes with moving arrows on them.
That was just a random phrase that popped into my head. According to wikipedia, phase noise is “random fluctuations in the phase of a wave.” The image of the generator (those ones you see towed behind workmen’s vans) is what I saw with my eyes closed.
19:38 colour in duvet transferring to fingernails and moving randomly in lines. Fragments of detail on objects causing them to be noticed more than usual, lines on knuckles perceived like it’s a Microsoft windows logo.
19:40 CEV - repeating patterns, assembly lines, cartoon style, simplified colours, all moving with music.
19:41 Easier to relate to very fast music, otherwise feel out of step with reality
I did notice that the music I was listening to influenced the visuals I would see – the visuals seemed to pulse and change in time with the music.
19:42 Nice relaxed city-style visuals, urban streets e.t.c in CEV
I started to see images of a city spreading out before me.
19:43 Feel enticed by glassy psychedelic car with entrancing waves of colour. If you can write it I can visualise it, baby.
With my eyes closed I could see the hood of a car and the windshield, but it was incredibly vivid, like a computer-generated image where all the light-sources and reflections have been calculated by a powerful computer.
19:46 Feel to have peaked on that build-up.
19:47 Can see people in the street. Feel fairly normal actually, just very cold clammy hands.
It was odd to see people walking calmly down the street outside while I was descending into a mushroom trip.
19:50 Forgot I was eating and wondered what the hell the swallowing reflex was.
I’m eating the last of the first box of mushrooms…
What visual effects are you experiencing now?
Well, since you ask, I appear to be hallucinating in an American tour-guide type voice so let’s start there. Reflections from the TV (sound off) are scattering light onto my hands which is picked up and amplified as though they were slightly reflective….
19:54 OK, thoughts are loosening. I forgot I was eating. But then you did kind of interrupt me with your questions. Right now I’m hallucinating a bus. It’s blue. Does that make you happy? It’s quite a nice shade of blue. I’m not even really sure why I’m writing this.
19:56 All first box eaten and gone. Mission OK so far….massively more relaxed than last time.
19:58 Imagine a seating plan for a theatre in a circle. Then imagine it’s fragmenting and flying towards you and the edges of all the objects look as if they have been ray-traced by a very powerful computer. They fly towards you and then down a tunnel. These are my CEV from a minute ago.
20:01 My hallucination now feels more like an all-inclusive hallucination: the bad build-up is just like a dodgy bus ride to a nice hotel.
20:02 Metaphors are being strained, syntax is being waxed, things are appearing where they shouldn’t and my thoughts are all turning codename zebra – whatever that might be.
20:03 Time seems to be dilated i.e slower. I’ll stop writing and hallucinate for a bit. I can’t spell but my mind is capable of some very complex calculations to produce these hallucinations.
20:05 Featuring dogs. Or dog symbols.
20:06 Earthlights – the drum track appears as vibrant lines of orange light. Appear to be outlines of bodies, then a tube train.
Earthlights = drum&bass track by
Nocturnal Emissions. The music was influencing my visuals, a bit like those “visualizers” you get with media players.
20:07 It’s like a supercomputer. I’m hallucinating transport systems. That can’t be good. Could be useful for transport planning – here is the new tube line we decided to build based upon a complex hallucination.
Sometimes my hallucinations seem to be themed, this time it was transport systems. I’d bought a GVB 48-hour card and I’d been taking the trams everywhere, so that might explain it.
20:09 Slight euphoria for no apparent reason
20:10 Time dilation again. This track seems very long. Emotions take on random colours, thoughts occur in purple. I’m imagining Whitley Bay but it’s all purple.
I’ve been to Whitley Bay. It’s not purple.
A lounge seen from above, light falling onto my eyelids perceived as ceiling lights.
I found that, especially because it was daylight outside, and also because the TV was throwing out coloured light, the light falling on my eyelids with my eyes closed would affect my CEV (you can still detect a certain amount of light even with your eyes shut). I had a strange vision of hovering near to the ceiling in a bar or lounge of some sort – in fact not unlike La Vie En Proost which I visited the next day
20:13 Thoughts appear to be linked into a complex system of public transport – they are going nowhere in trains that don’t even exist.
CEV of arrows, simplified shapes, system diagrams, subterranean transport systems. It starts to feel like my thoughts are linked into the hallucinations – trains of thought rattling around in my head.
20:14 It’s not even sunny outside but when I turned my head with my eyes closed I can see a sunset in the USA.
20:15 I blame the music. We need a scapegoat. As we break into Hyperborea interesting things are happening to the carpet. Remember – it’s a jungle out there
Hyperborea = track by
Biosphere. The green carpet was starting to twist and rotate itself into fractal patterns, although not very vivid.
20:17 Will eat ½ box more.
20:18 Body feels tired. Bad posture and exotic drugs.
If you close your eyes what do you see?
OK. Painting like overhead images and paintings mixed together. Google Earth mixed with memories of today’s museum visit. The circles of the exhibition room at the Van Gogh.
Portrait paintings combined with satellite imagery and mixed together…
20:25 Spinning bands of light with arrows embedded are our speciality.
In quite a lot of my visuals there would be moving borders around the edge, with arrows pointing in the direction of movement.
20:26 My eyes are glistening. I feel slightly sad but I’m thinking thoughts in reverse. Emotion caused by tears rather than vice-versa.
I’m sure that’s a side –effect of the mushrooms as it’s happened to me before. They also seem to make me yawn during the build-up; it’s a bit weird to start yawning during a frantic mushroom trip.
20:27 Mushroom Plan. We have a mushroom plan. It’s all written down which makes it sound official. Maybe I’ll write it up later and cover up the evidence.
At this point I’m either rambling or slightly paranoid. Probably both.
20:29 I read the instruction to “Never eat more than one box” as I’m chewing the last of the second box.
20:30 The problem with instructions like that is the question “Why? What happens?”
I am feeling manic for no apparent reason. Far too manic for a man with a pink duvet in a hotel in Amsterdam.
20:31 Must hold it together
20:32 I feel like a croissant. What’s the point of dangerous hallucinogenic drugs that make you want to eat croissants?
20:33 They lied to us. Our legislators claim that mushrooms cause people to jump out of windows. I merely fancy a croissant. My writing is a bit disorganised but other than that I’m fine thankyou.
20:34 In summary – imaginary transport systems for cartoon animals that are imprinted upon my subconscious like the border in a colour-scheme for a room – good
Jumping out of windows – bad.
Just a reality check to demonstrate that even on a high dose of mushrooms you’re not stupid.
20:40 It’s getting darker outside. This is a very soothing hallucination. It’s quiet. Too quiet. I fancy a croissant and a cup of tea. Where’s the harm in that?
20:55 This hallucination is far too sensible for my liking.
I was getting a little bit introspective – it’s strange to take a large dose of drugs that should totally fuck you up, only to find that you’re giving yourself sensible personal advice.
20:56 Blimey, in the new cyberdyne nightmare you can buy anyone but you can’t give yourself a chance to think.
“Cyberdyne nightmare” = after the mushroom ban. Cyberdyne systems was the “fictional company depicted in the Terminator films” says Wikipedia. Restriction of hallucinogenic drugs effectively controlling what you can think.
When I close my eyes I see an impossible staircase, like an Escher airport. It shouldn’t be allowed to happen. But it has!
That’s in large writing, the second box of mushrooms is starting to kick in….
20:58 This is more like it. Hallucinations with bite.
My CEV are neon-bright and the intensity of the trip seems to be increasing.
21:04 …if I could somehow get out of the whole imaginary systems of public transport scenario this would be easier.
Those imaginary trams are very persistent…..hopefully like the real ones they stop around midnight
I’m hoping that by creating an imaginary system of public transport I might just catch a glimpse of myself going the other way
Yep. That second box is really starting to take hold…
21:16 When your cleaner light is busy and there is a series of trams, we’ll take whichever one takes us home.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto…
(Cleaner light = track by
Kristin Hersh.)
21:21 And yet, my heart beats!
That’s from a bizarre
Andrew Liles track which includes a line about “an enormous mushroom growing in the nape of my neck.” I’m sat on the bed with a manic grin and a biro in my hand. Anything could happen.
OK, you’re the receptionist at a philosophy hotel. A man greets you. He appears to be a resident of the hotel. In the left pocket of his trousers is a box marked “never consume more than one box.” In the right pocket of his trousers is a box marked “never consume more than one box.” Both boxes are empty. What do you do?
I have a plan to go downstairs and speak to the receptionist. In a philosophy hotel they should be used to such conundrums (In the back of my notepad the answer is
“Send him out on his imaginary system of public transport and hope he meets himself coming the other way.”) That’s mushroom logic for you.
21:33 This isn’t a postcard from a sensible tomorrow.
21:45 Room 14 is a graveyard to all the cyberdyne pioneers who followed you in and couldn’t remember how to get out.
i.e this author is not responsible for anyone who follows me down the path of psychedelic oblivion and has trouble finding their way back.
You have to remember that during this trip I’m lying on a bed and looking up at a ceiling that’s painted to resemble the inside of a tomb in a pyramid. As the intensity of the trip increases it begins to feel as though I’m deep inside a labyrinth of my own thoughts.
This is accentuated by the yellowy-orange lines of light which follow the lines of the stone blocks in the picture on the ceiling, in a spiral from the centre of the picture, accompanied by glowing arrows.
I read the text of a framed piece of writing that describes the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. I can’t really understand what I’m reading but the writing is in different colours – red, green, even though in reality it’s just black and white.
I fall back on the duvet, on the pink stripes, and waves of energy dissipate from my arms, climb the walls and move around in spirals on the ceiling. The walls appear like a fiery orange plasma, it’s unbelievable.
I lie back on the bed several times during the trip, waving my arms to the music like a horizontal raver. By moving my hands I can part the orangey glow that covers the wall and the ceiling and alter its movements. I’m really enjoying this. The texture of the bedding and simple objects like a bottle of water feel wonderful.
I’d once seen a TV programme about pyramid builders which said that as the tomb was completed there was a tiny tunnel for the last workmen to get out, which was then filled in to seal the tomb.
At the height of my trip it feels as though I’m a long way from reality where the only way back is through the meandering labyrinth of my brain via my imaginary rapid transit – where I have to try and meet myself coming back the other way. And that’s where I am, trying to get out before I’m sealed in. It’s all metaphorical of course, but when you’re tripping in a philosophy hotel the metaphysics are all-important.
It’s a systematic catastrophe without any cats. We’re waiting here on the conveyors. They drum out. Nothing. No cats. What have you done to the cats?
Feline baggage reclaim at Schipol airport…..
It’s metaphysical mayhem. It’s Mondays-have-never-been-so-interesting Monday.
21:54 If you can’t beat them, join them. Turn on. Tune in. Drop out.
Around this time I’m listening to a track by Rapoon called “Wadch Haj” - a dark ambient track with a slow but persistent driving rhythm and other-worldy voices. I close my eyes and have an image of gliding through the sky above an alien world, with an ocean of consciousness expanding out like a new continent.
If I open my eyes the textured pattern on the walls bursts into movement – the walls are glowing orange as though torrents of energy are flowing through them.
Reality mindstorms.
Trains to nowhere.
They can’t get in, and even if they could they wouldn’t want to.
At 22:00 I decide to leave my hotel room. This is not a good idea as I’m at the peak of my trip, with eyes like saucers and carrying around my exercise book. My plan is to go downstairs and get a cup of tea from the bar at reception, but as soon as I leave the room to go downstairs I meet some hotel guests coming the other way.
I say hello and try to act normal but I must look completely fucked out of my head. As they walk down the corridor I hear a man say something jokingly about “refreshments on the first floor” and a woman say “They are
wasted!” But there’s only one of me, I’m thinking…..
I get a sense that this is a really bad idea and retreat to my room and lock the door.
22:07 We are wasted, yes. But we have croissants. I would hate to organise an imaginary railway to nowhere without any croissants. Beach tomorrow anyone?
I stare into the bathroom mirror, half-expecting to see my face dissolve. Instead, it’s the only thing that remains visible as the rest of the reflection just appears to burst into a fiery glow and disintegrates into waves of orange light.
My notes are blank for more than one hour. During this time the trip has peaked and is receding, and I start to feel quite paranoid. Going outside the room and being seen by other people means that the madness is no longer safely contained within my head. Despite the mushrooms being legal, I have thoughts of hotel staff knocking on the door, questions being asked. At this stage I’m in no state to be able to speak to anyone, just clutching my head to my knees or sat on the edge of the bed. I’d wanted to talk to someone but now I just feel very alone, tired and fucked-up.
Remember kids – just say no!
After my ipod playlist finishes I decide that if I can’t go out I better try to sleep, which surprisingly I do, but it’s a very fevered sleep in which it seems the net is closing around my hallucinogenic activities – phone calls being made, police on the way, being interviewed by my manager at work, being apprehended on the plane.
The end of reason. The knock at the door in the middle of the night. My thoughts and dreams as I sleep are like a repeating circle. I keep waking up with the image of a tram timetable in my head, with a shrill background gurgle of hallucinogenic processed noise.
23:15 Reality mindscromble: one man’s search for reason in an insane world
I feel more positive after a light sleep. They can’t arrest me for saying “hello” to people on the stairs, surely?
23:28 Where can I start? Where did it all begin? Where will it all end?
23:56 There comes a point in every successful trip where one set of systematic delusions has to be replaced by the psychotic nightmare that is everyday life.
What makes me any different? I know where the bodies are buried, of the people that followed us in and couldn’t find their way out.
0:02 It’s when the primary visuals stop and the systematic delusions begin that you’ve got to be careful…
I’ve taken such a large dose of mushrooms that it’s taken me a while to work out that even though most of the obvious effects have stopped, I’m still tripping. I feel very peaceful and full of ideas about how my personal life is going to be better from now on, but I’m beginning to realise that this is just an effect of the drug; a systematic delusion.
0:08 If your systematic delusions involve beaches and croissants and being nice to people…then I’d say the systematic delusions are the only sensible way to go forward.
It’s a shame with mushrooms that just towards the end of the trip I seem to find a state of mind that would be very productive if it could be maintained during normal life. It makes me realise that my normal mindset is fairly arbitrary – if the balance of chemicals in my brain was slightly different I’d be quite a different person.
0:11 I’m so fucking hungry it’s unbelievable
Food has never tasted so good……
0:30 I’ve just been sat watching my right foot fade and disappear, merging with the tiled floor if I stare at it…
0:40 Random idea: there should be a mushroom aviation authority. File a flight plan and stick to it. But don’t go outside. Please for fuck’s sake don’t go outside. It’s fucking horrible….
Trip Assessment: A very visual trip, I was pleased with it overall. I got the kind of open-eye-visuals that I wanted to see. I think it’s unrealistic to take that kind of dose and expect the whole trip to be light-hearted and fun, so a bit of paranoia wasn’t too bad. The dose was manageable as I’ve built up to it gradually on other trips, otherwise it would quite likely be a nightmare – it takes a bit of effort to steer your thoughts through your own mushroom logic whilst maintaining an awareness of the real world. A notepad helps.
The decision to go outside was something I’d decided to do before taking the mushrooms, but trying it soon made me realise why it’s a bad idea – in the peak of a heavy mushroom trip you just don’t look normal. You might be able to behave quite sensibly but even so people can tell you are on drugs. Hotels are unlikely to be keen on people taking drugs in the rooms, so probably just as well I didn’t start talking to the receptionist. Also it might have freaked her out, although I’m sure it would have made a more interesting report!
If I repeat this dose I’ll leave myself strict instructions not to go outside until the effects are wearing off. To have a proper experience outdoors with mushrooms I’m sure it would be better to take a dose of something milder, like Mexicans. In Amsterdam, I think the best advice for a heavy trip is to confine yourself to a hotel room and only go outside for a bit of air when you are well past the peak of the trip.
