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Mushroom Season!

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The Natural Way

14:06 / 20.10.02

Superb!

And to think, I was waffling about how I'd probably knock 'em on the head this year....

You know when you don't expect it? When the last thing you have on your mind is tripping and then, suddenly, you find yrself somewhere else...and you ain't pissed no more?

Well, that was me, last night. The evening began w/ a big crowd of us at the Snowdrop in Lewes, where we supped our pints and checked out the excellent R'n'B/Country strummings of Mr. John Crampton. The pissed evening dragged on until we all ended up at a friend's and, w/ that "oh, wahey! and I just don't give a fuck" attitude, we necked a few little people and, around 3ish, the madness ensued.

Now, what was weird - and kind of why I bring this up (apart from the fact that I had a brilliiant night and just have to talk about it, regardless of whether anyone's reading or not) - is that no-one consumed more than ten of the tiny, fleshy fuckers, but everyone (and that's all of 11 people) shot up literally within half an hour and we were all really, really wasted. Now, I've consumed low doses of mushrooms before and, while it was fun in a cotton-wooly sort of way, It's never caused me to really, y'know, TRIP, but last night... Hallucinating like a bastard, totally in the zone and it lasted for HOURS... Strongest mushrooms I've ever taken. We quickly turned a friends bedroom into a cosy, dark den, and there were not less than four or five people camped out on the double bed at anyone time - the rest were sprawled on the floor... All very womblike and accompanied by much giggling; Phillip Glass; Can; CloudDead; The Catherine Wheel; a sprinkling of paranoia; massaging and people's personalities stripped bare... None of us could believe we'd taken so few and achieved such a crazy effect. I'd just like to know if anyone else has gone really far out on fuck all mushies, and what the fuck was going on. Does the freshness have something to do with it? Common mushie law tells us that, to achieve a higher degree of potency, one should dry the buggers, but these guys were heavier than any dried mushrooms I've ever sunk.

Anyway, it was all wonderfully....err...loving and cathartic - really special. One of those gorgeous nights to remember that springs outta nowhere. But strange and...well...HOW and WHY?

The Natural Way

14:08 / 20.10.02

God, so much better than getting pissed.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:23 / 20.10.02

...aaahhh... my little fungal friends... am hoping to make contact with them in the near future.

15:02 / 20.10.02

Good stuff, glad you had a good one. I got about 70 on thursday and have been drying them. Good thing as well cos it was really frosty on thursday night so they've started dying off in the fields. I'm going to hold on till halloween or later this week. Still haven't decided if I'll do 'em all in one go or what. You should see all the little beasties that came out of them when they were dried.
Bless em they're nature's gift.

Wrecks City-Zen

20:12 / 20.10.02

If you want real magical effects, let them dry for a year.

Really.

The Natural Way

07:20 / 21.10.02

Oh, believe me, I have seen the little beatsties that crawl out of them when they're under the lamp. Gross.

Hmmm...

Still wondering if anyone else has had a really heavy experience with so few mushrooms, though....

10:03 / 22.10.02

All very womblike and accompanied by much giggling; Phillip Glass; Can; CloudDead; The Catherine Wheel; a sprinkling of paranoia; massaging and people's personalities stripped bare...

Well that sounds like my idea of a good night's entertainment..

The Natural Way

10:50 / 22.10.02

I keep on idly wondering if fairies, gnomes, elves etc are just magic mushrooms in disguise... So much modern (and by that I mean Victorian onwards) fairy art depicts the little buggers in hats composed of mushrooms (flyagaric being a popular number); and then there's the stories of how they whisk humans off to their magic world, play tricks with them....and, sometimes, they're downright scary.... And, y'know, they're really small, appear out of nowhere (anyone that's done even a little bit of mushie hunting - psychotropic or otherwise - will be familiar with this peculiar feature of mushiness).... I know this all seems a bit lame, but I can't shake the feeling that the respective histories of "the little people" and the "little people" are intimately intertwined, and have continued to feed upoun and impact with one other over the centuries.... I think there's something in it.

This is all painfully obvious, isn't it? I expect the lith-magicians out there have been making pacts with the psilocybin deva for years now.

No star here laces

12:12 / 22.10.02

I'm dead certain I've told this story on the board before, but I once got a friend to import some of those 3" wide mexican mushies about 4 years ago. We brewed up about 6 of 'em in a teapot and then the four of us got stuck in. 6 hours later we all simultaneously snapped out of it. Most intense trip of my life - I was completely unaware of my surroundings. In fact I actually didn't believe 6 hours had elapsed - I thought I was tripping and imagining the chaos in my room and the illogical position of the sun in the sky. One of my friends spent 4 hours on the toilet, naked, 'controlling the universe'. I just thought I'd died. Incongruously death featured a 'christmas rap' tape on a continuous loop, which was in fact playing in the room for the entire time.

Further to that, i discovered a secret mushie patch in edinburgh the year after and for the next two years would pick about 2lbs of them come october, and consume them almost daily (though mostly in very small doses in spliffs - very harsh on the lungs). The only time I ate them fresh, the friend I was with climbed some scaffolding, fell off from two stories up breaking about 6 ribs and puncturing a lung. he was hallucinating as the doctors took him into the hospital - screaming, holding my hand and begging me not to let them take him away. Needless to say, I can't stand the little fuckers now...

The Natural Way

12:39 / 22.10.02

...completely fucking understandably. Jesus....

That sounds like a pretty keen description of Hell.

yawn - thing's buddy

14:40 / 22.10.02

Runce ma man! Good on yer. I’m a big fan of mushrooms, or at least I used to be: been very lazy the last few years – also, there was a nervous breakdown that got in the way but yknow, I think I’m ready again. Yeah….
As for getting banged out yer nut on very few..so true. Me too. In the year before 1992.
Made tea from freshly picked liberty cap horrors and let it cool for no other reason than I forget to do them until I realised a few hours later that I had a bottle of mushie tea in my coat pocket when I was heading down the pub. It had congealed slightly and was pretty gross – but wow – what an effect! Realistically, there was probably about 20 mushies worth in there.
I won’t bore you – I had a great time and as every mushronaut knows, for the duration of the evening (or whenever) it’s best to stick with the people you trip with initially – this I did – they the fuckers disappeared, one by one and lo and behold I was delivered unto the bad trip plateau.
I was sure I was an assassination target. It was hell.

Back to your experience – I’d say, drinking may have some impact on the experience, as will numbers of people with you, attitudes of said people and expectations too.

Exact science it is not. But you already know this.

Lewes eh?

I’ve got posh cousins down there.

ps. Strain the 'tea' through a tea towel to rid yerself of the maggots.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:11 / 22.10.02

Been finding that every other conversation I have at the moment is on this subject... it's truly the season

know what you mean, Runce about that, 'naaaaa, can't be bothered this year, whoooops here we go again'.... a *big* fan of mushrooms, much prefer them to acid as trip of choice...

most intense thing for ages was with an ex-elf and friends in Japan, new years eve, a couple of years ago... Decided not to go out and instead decided to get whatturned out to be very strong (legal!) mushrooms and stay in. Four of us from Brighton visiting a college friend we hadn't seen in about 2 years by then, so a lovely set up of us all being together again...

The six of us, who'd spent a week pretty much together all the time, cosied up in my mate Gregg's incredibly tiny Yokohama flat. Given that the only drug we'd had since we'd got there was alcohol (gear being incredibly dodgy to get hold off), a biiiiiiggg shift. Really strong, had a brief moment of losing touch to a slightly scary extent, but hugs and friends brought me down just enough...

Lots of toys, things to play with, music, hugging, stroking, laughing, that 'emotions stripped bare' thing Runce was talking about. I went off on a complete tangent about how strange it was to be in Japan with these people...Remember turning around and seeing our mate's girlfriend giggling and giggling, she'd never tried mushrooms before.... and just holding her and laughing. Etc, you know the rest...

The perfect demo of Yawn's 'stick with your tripmates' point...

And Runce, as others have said, a touch of 'contact high' in addition to the mushrooms themselves, being around the right people that mindset, maybe?

The Natural Way

15:11 / 22.10.02

Well, it's near the bright-town where most of my chums live, and the Snowdrop is one of the loveliest, most bohemian pubs in Southern England, so it just seemed the place for us to go. I've had steaming bad trips on mushrooms - it's only in the last couple of years that I've started dabbling again - but, so long as I keep the dosage low, everything seems dandy... But I didn't know you could go as low as minus 10 and still get a cool, strong effect (without the aforementioned straining & tea-brewing).

But, yeah, last Saturday night was the quintessential good trip - everyone was in the same space and my mate Vicky and I massaged each other's feet all night.... No-one stayed inside THE FEAR for too long and we all helped each other out generally with lots of laughter, conversation and niceness. It was a real inter-personal trip - it had its introspective moments, but, in the end, it was a really ,loving, bonding, sociable thing, and I've never had a trip quite like that before. Sure, at points my social anxieties leapt to the fore, but then I suddenly became aware of everyone else's shit - the way we all hide behind habitual social tactics. I saw the armour and how it's composed out of repetition, and all the funny tense ways we hold ourselves - the way our muscles clench automatically; our default settings... I just came out of it feeling really expansive and relaxed. And cotton-wooly.

None of that "I'm a plant!" business this time round. Well, alright...maybe some....

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:16 / 22.10.02

(oh and btw, yawn, runce and his pals are posh enough for Lewes. Oh yes.)

See, this:

"No-one stayed inside THE FEAR for too long and we all helped each other out generally with lots of laughter, conversation and niceness. It was a real inter-personal trip - it had its introspective moments, but, in the end, it was a really ,loving, bonding, sociable thing"

is a really powerful thing in itself. A strong, flexible, caring group dynamic is an amazing thing to experience, and on a trip, you're going to be that much more aware of it. Also, as you say, perhaps be able to see and set aside the social stresses that can go along with these dynamics, and to then experience empathy/understanding/respect ...

pretty therapeutic, i'd say, for most people.

07:07 / 23.10.02

As far as the low dosage thing is concerned, I got hold of 250 one year, and distributed them all amongst the audience at a gig my band was playing. Me and the drummer split what was left over. Has to be one of the most intense hallucinogenic experiences I've had... the first two songs of the set were kind of ropey and all over the place, but then suddenly all of us- band and audience- went Bing! and from then on in it was just perfect.

I think it has something to do with sharing the dose, sharing the space, and generally being together for the experience...

The Natural Way

07:29 / 23.10.02

Yeah, it was hugely therapeutic, Plums. Vix and I have been on a real high for the past few days - she called me last night and we chatted about the thing for about an hour. We've just needed to share and, what with the general "drugs are baaaad" attitude at work (and the fact that I commute every day to and from a tiny village), I've been really frustrated at having no-one to talk to about what was, all in all, a very positive experience. I don't pretend I'm CURED of all my weird, habitual tensions, but Saturday night did allow me to burn off some charge. It was a real purge and it's left a bit of a smile on my face.

I'm sure I'll be a miserable bastard again in a few days...bear w/ me.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:46 / 23.10.02

My strongest ever mushroom trip (in fact, my strongest trip ever... and I used to take stupid amounts of acid on a regular basis in my mis-spent youth) was the first one- it was only about 25-30 of them.

I was 17. First time I'd ever tripped. I think I was expecting (despite having read all manner of books on the subject) something like being stoned, only maybe a bit weirder.

What I GOT, however...

I've never been able to get that back. Ketamine and Salvia have been the only things that have come close to THAT one.

Mushies? Love 'em. Bless their rain-soaked little stalks.

09:53 / 24.10.02

Just to add a similar recent experience- yesterday we (me & Pacha) found 7 shrooms when out on Hampstead Heath. Necked them when we came back in and about 15 minutes later I was in a slightly spaced zone- more acute and slightly hallucinatory vision and a slightly fucked sense of time. Pacha was also certain the TV was wobbling.
This lasted the rest of the evening- and we were just on our way out to meet some peeps. My experience with the old liberty caps is fairly limited but this seems fairly impressive for 3.5 caps each.

The Return Of Rothkoid

10:32 / 24.10.02

Anyone know about the mushroom availability in Australia? I'm hoping it's a little more than "fuck all".

uncle retrospective

10:36 / 24.10.02

Ah, I was worried, we've had shitty weather over here and I was worried that the season was going to be a dead loss, I had 15 at a Death in Vegas gig (I recomend this)and feared that was it, but I went up to the local picking spot and got a cool 200+. Now I have to work out what to do. Scoff them over a weekend or dry them for new year.
Life is tough.
Drezner, go up to Johnny Fox's. It's gold up there.

No star here laces

12:16 / 24.10.02

Have to say, I never found anything less than 40 to be an effective dose, but maybe the english ones are stronger than the scots variety...

The Natural Way

15:14 / 24.10.02

My God, Lyra! My average dose is somewhere around the 20 mark! Chill out, sonny! It must depend on the Mushrooms, but a sizeable percentage of the peeps I tripped w/ last Sat are really, really seasoned trippers (acid and liberty caps) and we all hallucinated, experienced bent time and head and lots of MEANING and were generally fucked. Sure, it was shocking - my usual experience on so low a dose is much closer to Pacha and co's. - but, normally, 15 or so should do any head proud. Unless you like to get really fucked. Up. On. Drugs. Mate.

23:00 / 24.10.02

Rothkoid: Anyone know about the mushroom availability in Australia? I'm hoping it's a little more than "fuck all".

I'm pretty sure they're there. I'm not at home right now, so I don't have me book on that, but I distinctly remember color photos of psilo shrooms from Japan, so I figure if they're there, they're everywhere.

Oh, and in Australia, they have psychedelic shrubs, motherfucker.

23:04 / 24.10.02

Yeah, they're everywhere.

Dig the antipodean species names on those last two.

The Return Of Rothkoid

23:30 / 24.10.02

My mood is lightened considerably. I am in your debt, grant.

Though after consumption, I may be in your mind, also.

20:30 / 27.10.02

Over these last two weekends, my intrepid little band of three have found more than 2300 of the lovelies... last weekend I tripped alone and faced my demons, this time we brewed together. A far more pleasant experience. I set my dose at around 50 for just muntered bonding and giggling, 100 for serious work. Like Thursday night.

This is the first time I've ever found more than five of them, the first time I've actually had enough of them at Samhain. Wish me well...

I'm going in...

The Natural Way

10:49 / 28.10.02

50?

100?

Christ, I haven't done that many since my teens.

You'll have to excuse me, but the idea that 50 would be, y'know, just enough to get me giggly and bondy, well....reminds me of the weird emaciated guys I used to know who went raving on Hastings pier and enjoyed "chilling out w/ a trip and a few pills". You don't seriously need to take 100 for "serious work", do you? I've had some of my most meaningful trip insights on less than 20...c'mon.....admit it, you just like to get REALLY FUCKED.

And "munter" is a bad word (or, at least, it has nasty roots). Look it up sometime.

wembley can change in 28 days

12:07 / 28.10.02

and here i thought there was another person on the list living in Finland - in my Finnish 101 course, we just learned the verb "to pick mushrooms", and we don't know the verbs to have, to take, to give, or to run yet. Priorities, people.

Speaking of being stranded in a northern country, I miss drugs...

00:22 / 29.10.02

what can I say? I'm with Lyra... I guess it's all about metabolism, body weight and a whole lot more. We're all built differently.

The Natural Way

14:33 / 29.10.02

Naah, fifty's a lot. Really, it is. Pretty much everyone I know - fat or thin, big or small - would get reasonably fucked on fifty. You can't fob me off w/ that "my mysterious metabolism" stuff.

I'm just really sceptical of this "I must take millions" business.

14:59 / 29.10.02

I think it's maybe the distinction between dry and fresh ones- the latter being loads more potent, so a handful will have you swinging from the lights (well,giggling at a rock and enjoying a Spacemen 3 album, or whatever) whereas you have to take tons of dried ones.
The 3.5 shroom dose (fresh ones) I took last week was not disimilar in effects to an ocassion when I took what were claimed to be about 50, which had been dried for a few days, I reckon- dunno, not a very exact science obviously

19:28 / 16.12.02

Hey! I'm trying these for the first time on Saturday and am pretty excited. Note: I've never done halluncinagens before, and I can't spell them either. End of Semester Fun Fun.

When you're saying 20, 50, 3.5 etc. Are you talking about weight measurements or actual mushrooms? (A friend is organising this so I assume she knows what she's doing. Just curious as to what the average dosage is)

20:10 / 16.12.02

erm- it's an individual mushroom thing- there's different types, of course. UK posters will generally be talking about liberty caps (Psilocybe semilanceata), more than likely - as they're common in UK and Europe. Y'might wanna search google

20:50 / 16.12.02

With mushrooms, part of the fun is that there *is* no recommended dosage. Active constituents (the part that actually gets you high) varies *hugely* within the same species, even in the same location during the same season. There are lots of theories as to why this is, but little actual knowledge.
The psilocin/psilocybin levels will also vary even *more* hugely between species, so they can be kind of sneaky.

Check erowid for more info before you go.

Mindset and setting are really key for having a fruitful trip, so be somewhere interesting & relaxing with interesting & relaxing people, and you'll be fine regardless of dosage.

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:30 / 16.12.02

yep. as with pretty much any drug you've never tried before, be with people you feel comfortable with, and trust, and all will be fine.

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