A learning experience

Trip report 5/25/2019
25g Psilocybin w/150mg Syrian Rue 

I had spent the week performing a Syrian Rue extraction for an MAOI (momoamine oxidase inhibitor) because I wanted to experience a deeper more immersive experience. The end result product turned out well although the process was much more difficult and time consuming than I expected. The filtering part of it took forever. We had planned an overnight camping trip and reserved a campsite a couple weeks earlier because my work schedule was about to get really busy and we really wanted to experience mushrooms out in the woods before it gets really hot here in AZ.  We arrived at the campsite at around 5:30 in the afternoon and set up camp. We wanted everything to be as perfect as possible for this experience. I had put the Syrian Rue extract in capsules and I brought the mushrooms we had which was about 100g. I only planned on taking about 9-11 grams, but when the time came I ended up putting about 30-35 grams in a small glass mason jar with a handle on it for the two of us. Also on advice from a friend I poured lemon juice in the jar and let them soak in it. We took our Syrian Rue capsules at 6:30pm and waited an hour while the mushrooms soaked. When the hour had passed we couldn’t wait to start eating the mushrooms and we started chowing down. They were sour as hell, but easier to eat than when they are just straight up dry. They had rehydrated quite a bit in the lemon juice and after I had given my girlfriend(Sam) what I estimated was enough for her I set about eating the rest in the jar. She wasn’t able to finish all of what I gave her which would have probably been 9-10g dry. She handed what would have been maybe a few grams dry back to me when she felt she had enough and I ate those too. There was about an inch of black liquid lemon juice in the bottom of the jar after I had eaten all of the mushrooms and I figured what the hell, so I drank that too. I had been having some stomach issues for a couple days prior to this trip and I usually have to take a pretty extreme number two after I eat mushrooms. I don’t ever feel nauseous, it just comes out the other way. So as I sat there and began to feel a little of the effects coming on I decided to go try to use the bathroom which was only about 100ft away from our camp. It was actually a very clean and large bathroom for a campground which was fortunate. I got into the bathroom and was sitting on the toilet when I suddenly noticed the floor seemed to be moving. Upon further inspection it was as if small brown droplets of water were moving through grooves in the floor in a swirling pattern. They were in lines like ants and the pattern became a human figure with one hand raised and I realized it looked just like something out of Alex Grey’s artwork. It was incredible. I would look away and then back down and the floor would be normal, but quickly revert back to the movement of the lines of droplets forming a pattern. I then looked at my leg and the hairs on it were also moving and swirling. At this point I realized that I was really starting to trip pretty hard and decided it would be best to get back to the camp and sit in my camp chair. Plus I had left Sam at the camp and I wanted to see if she was starting to see the visuals as well. I made it back to the camp and sat down. We were both definitely feeling the effects at this point. The sun was starting to set and the fire was going strong. We started to see the stars appearing in the sky. Everything looked incredible. As the sun set I noticed when I looked at the bushes behind Sam, they looked pixelated like something you see in Minecraft. The world seemed to be in 8 bit, at least some parts of it. I then noticed that the fire was digital. Sam confirmed this as well. It was quite interesting, but I wasn’t able to focus on any one thing for very long. I kept looking around  and it felt almost uncontrollable. The tree that was over the rent seemed to be swirling and dancing and Sam also could see that the same way I did. I looked up at the stars and the Big Dipper was directly overhead. It was so bright and each star in the sky seemed to be flickering. The longer I stared at them the more they seemed to almost move and pulse in a breathing motion. Then at one point I remember them spreading apart until they were all equidistant apart and in a giant evenly space grid all across the sky. I remember thinking to myself that although I know that isn’t real, it’s badass and kind of beautiful. Now at this point I started to really feel that I was losing my grip on myself. I have done mushrooms quite a few times and I have taken large doses before. As large as 19g and I never felt out of control in any way. I felt pretty high and the visuals were awesome and that was what I expected this time. I thought the Syrian Rue would just enhance the effects and make them last longer which was fine by me. However, I was now starting to lose track of myself and my surroundings. As I realized that I became aware that we were not in a safe environment to be in that condition. For one thing, there was a fire a couple feet in front of us and there was another campsite about 25 yards away from us. I knew if anyone came over to talk to us, I was in no condition to communicate with a sober person and they would likely call for help, which would not be good for us. Suddenly as all these thoughts were rushing through my head of all the different scenarios that we could end up finding ourselves in a bad situation because of, I felt guilty for putting us in this situation. Sam started getting sick and throwing up. I was extremely worried about her, but I literally couldn’t leave my chair. I reached over and grabbed onto her shoulder and asked her if she was ok. She said not really and I tried to hold onto her to comfort her as well as make sure she didn’t fall in the fire. Falling in the fire became a big concern in my thoughts. I kind of didn’t know where my body was and when I would look around I was having a hard time seeing anything very clearly aside from my immediate area like within 3 or 4 feet. Sam eventually sat up and said she felt better and that was a relief for me, but I did not feel better. I felt completely disconnected from reality and all of a sudden a big white dog started viciously barking and growling at us from behind, but luckily on the other side of the picnic table. Neither of us got up, I told it to go away and Sam 
shhhh’ed it.  It stayed there barking at us for what seemed like an eternity.  I wasn’t even capable of being frightened of the dog, but the thought of the owner coming over and getting it and possibly talking to us was terrifying. Eventually the dog went away. Sam later told me she saw the owner come and call the dog over to them. I was oblivious of that. The next thing that I remember happening was a sort of time loop where Sam said she was cold and asked me to put another log on the fire. I kept telling her I already did and she kept saying do it again. As far as I can tell we ran through that same exchange many many times. Couldn’t tell you how many times. The firewood was right next to the left side of my chair and Sam was sitting in her chair on my right with the fire right in front of us. Then she eventually said “reach down with your left hand and grab a piece of wood”. This was an interesting notion at the time because I wasn’t aware I had a left hand. I did realize it then though and I reached down into the abyss of darkness next to me and low and behold felt a piece of wood. I lifted it into the light and said you want me to put this in the fire. She said yes and I tossed it in. Now after that I remember not being able to see visually anymore for a while. I was inside my mind for a while and I started thinking about it being cold and I thought to myself that we could die of hypothermia out there and I didn’t think I would be able to do anything about it since I was not in any sort of control of my body anymore. This thought process went on for quite some time until the sudden urge to pee came to me and seemed to be a bit of an emergency. I stood up thinking not that I would go to the actual bathroom and pee, because I knew that wasn’t gonna be possible, but that I would just walk away from the fire a little and pee out of camp. Upon standing up, I realized that in all directions there was peril that I was not in the right state of mind to deal with. So I thought to myself just sit back down. However, now I didn’t know where my chair was. I hadn’t moved my feet since I stood up and I knew that, but that didn’t change the fact that I didn’t know where my chair was. I reached behind me and tried to feel for the chair.  Nothing at first and then my fingertip felt something and I thought to myself, well that feels like my chair. I’m just going to sit down and assume what I know to be reality is still reality. I sat down and was back in my chair. That was a relief, but only a brief one because I suddenly remembered how bad I had to pee. I didn’t want to pee in my pants or in my chair, but I really had to go!  So I said to myself fuck it, I will just stand up and pee so it won’t get on me or my chair. As I stood back up, I realized that the only thing I could really see was the fire. I thought well at least I will know where I peed and I proceeded to pee on the fire. Sam of course noticed what I was doing and started laughing. I said yeah, this had to happen. Then after I finished peeing I sat back down and fell back into a crazy place that didn’t really make sense. I gave up trying to fight it. I knew I couldn’t win. I just had to ride this out and hope we didn’t freeze to death in the woods. I glanced over at Sam and noticed she had stood up and walked away from her chair. My only thought was that there is no way she can do that and that I must help her get back to her chair before she falls in the fire or into the abyss that was the wilderness just outside of the campfire light. With all of my mental and physical ability I stood up and shakily walked towards Sam and grabbed onto her. She protested and told me she was blowing out the citronella candles we had put around the camp to keep the bugs away. I said you can’t just get up and walk around like this. That’s pretty funny now, I was dead serious at the time. She kept telling me she was fine, but since I wasn’t fine I didn’t think it was possible for anyone else to be either. It just couldn’t dawn on me that she wasn’t in the same state of trip as I was. She walked back the other way passed the fire and handed me her water bottle and said put the fire out with this. I poured the water on the fire. It didn’t seem like much water. I had probably peed more on the fire than that, but it put it out. Sam continued to walk over passed our chairs and sat down on the picnic table bench and said come sit next to me. I said I’ll try, but I’m not sure if it’s possible. I did go sit next to her and the last citronella candle that was lit was sitting on the bench between us. I didn’t feel safe in such proximity to any type of open flame so I blew it out. Now we were sitting in darkness and she said we have to go to the tent. I asked how? I didn’t even think I had a body at this moment and I didn’t see the tent anymore. In fact I couldn’t really see anything. I reached over and put my hand on Sam’s shoulder. She pulled me up off the bench and I supposed that I must have legs and a body after all and I must have been standing up now. She gently pulled me and I followed, but she seemed to be walking away from the tent and I thought she was lost like I had been. So told her  we are going the wrong way as I tripped over one of the tie down ropes. I only snagged a little on it though and then realized she wasn’t lost and was just trying to guide me around that stupid thing. Now I heard a zipper and Sam told me to go in the tent, but all I could see was blackness and two strange grey rectangles that didn’t have anything to do with the tent. So I asked her what tent??  And told her I didn’t see any tent. She said it was right here and I said where. She said in front of you. I reached out in front of me and felt what I perceived to be the front of the tent. It certainly felt like the tent and the sound it made when I rubbed my hand on it sounded like the tent, but I couldn’t see it. So I was still confused as to how to proceed. She said just go in and I said why don’t you go first and I’ll follow you. She said no you go first. So I pushed forward and into what I hoped was the tent. The next thing I remember was being in the bed. We had set up an air mattress in the tent and I was on it now. I didn’t actually remember laying down or how I was oriented for that matter, but Sam was telling me to get under the covers and I didn’t know how to do that given that I didn’t have enough information. Eventually after much struggling we were under the blankets. It felt nice to breathe into the blanket on my face and warm my nose. After laying there for a little while continually reminding myself to keep breathing, suddenly I shit my pants. It was a quite uncontrollable thing and it happened much too fast for me to have stopped it. I think I had just finally relaxed a little and that’s what happened. I told Sam that something bad had happened and explained to her my situation. She said it was ok and that we were in this together. I knew it was gonna be quite the mess tomorrow. A little time passed and Sam said she needed to go to the bathroom too. When she said that I realized that I also had to pee really bad. There was much debate about what to do between her and I. I knew I couldn’t leave the tent. It just wasn’t safe for us and she concurred with me on that point, but we really had to go. We agreed to just let it happen several times, but neither of us could go through with it. Even though I had already shit my pants I didn’t want to make things worse by adding a wet mess to the situation. After a long time of us just being really uncomfortable and just feeling horrible and not knowing what to do, we both agreed we should just go to the actual bathroom outside. I felt a little more in reality than I had for the previous several hours. So off we went. We got into the bathroom (the men’s room) and I peed in the urinal and Sam went into the stall. I went into the stall too after I peed and held my phone flashlight for her. We were in there a while and finally we headed back to the tent when I suddenly felt my stomach do a thing and said I think I need to go back to the bathroom. So we went back and I went while she held the phone flashlight for me.  When I sat down I looked in my pants expecting to see the nastiest most horrific diarrhea imaginable all over the inside of my pants, but there was none. There was a very small streak in my underwear that was faint and dry. It was really strange because I swear I could feel it running down my leg and what not in the tent, but apparently my mind made all of that up. While I sat realizing that, I also realized that this was the first time in 10 years that either of us had ever witness the other use the bathroom.  Also realizing that it didn’t matter at this point there was no other way. My phone died and we were in a dark bathroom. I started fumbling around in my pocket and found a small flashlight that Sam had given me when I went to the bathroom before we started tripping and I hadn’t needed it because it wasn’t dark yet at the time. I had forgot I even put it in my pocket, but I sure felt lucky to have it at that moment. We finished up and headed back to the tent. Sam said she was hungry and we stopped and grabbed a couple bags of chips out of the car and also grabbed the s’mores fixins and miscellaneous food items off the picnic table so we didn’t attract any animals in the night. We were both coming out of the trip at this point and we could tell we were back in reality again. After we got back in the tent we realized we needed a cord to charge our phones and I went back to the car and got a cord. My phone started ringing, but it was a number I didn’t have saved and I wasn’t in a place to talk to anyone so I silenced my phone and fell asleep. The caller had been my ex(Shannon) and I don’t know why it didn’t say it was her as I do have her number saved and we call each other all the time. Our 19 year old son rolled his car on the freeway and she was trying to get ahold of me to let me know. When we woke up a couple hours later. After the sun came up and it actually started to become hot in the tent Sam checked her phone and had missed calls and texts as well from Shannon. We called her right way and she told us the news. This obviously made it so we had to hurry and break down camp and head to the hospital. We tried to make sense of the evenings crazy happenings the whole hour and a half drive back to town. My son was ok and they discharged him from the hospital only minutes before we got to there and we met up with him and Shannon and talked to them for a little while before heading home for a much needed nap. I learned never to do that again in such a setting. A normal dose of just mushrooms would have been fine, but not that breaking with reality level of dose. That was not ok, but it was definitely an adventure. No regrets, but I won’t do that in such settings again.