Shroom Stories

An Episode of Magic Mushroomery

Seventy magic mushrooms of the strand known as Liberty Cap, or Psilocybe Semilanceata, is considered a high dose for one man. But as the limit considered potentially fatal is proximate to a dose outnumbering a million, fear is not of death but of another undiscovered country – a country inhabited by foreigners occult, angelic, insectoid, alien, absurd, animal, and generally outrageous. This report is a travelogue.

On quite an empty stomach I ingested the seventy apostles, ‘sending them forth as lambs in the midst of wolves’ – as a gospel would have it. After twenty minutes my pupils had already dilated to saucer proportions and my body seemed to weigh a third less than usual. As this effect affected me so soon, anxiety set in. But this time I quickly objectified it, trying to observe rather than suffer it. And thereafter it left me alone to enjoy what was to come.

I began to stare at a plain yellow but large lampshade. Its duotone texture organised itself into a depth of some inches with streams or vegetation twirling therein. I then noticed faces, most memorably of a goat or nasty demon peering through to me. Then I noticed another area of the lampshade where stood a bearded fisherman in a factory before a conveyor belt. His arms were outstretched to the belt, but what I considered to be particularly funny was his look: one of wide-eyed shock. I laughed uncontrollably as if I were mad – but I was mad. Certainly a third person watching me stare at a plain lampshade and laugh hysterically would agree with that diagnosis. I do not know why I saw him as a fisherman as there were no boats, sea or fish associated with him, but a fisherman was he.

My body weight now seemed to match that of a lunar walker, my mind of a lunatic. I floated to the sofa where my real space trek was to begin. I closed my eyes and covered them with my hands. Though the visuals one has with eyes open are certainly bizarre here, the visuals with eyes closed go beyond the bizarre to the sublime. The concept of the ‘sublime’, as often compared to the ‘beautiful’, especially in Enlightenment-era literature, is one that is felt often when under this magic spell. Immanuel Kant’s notion of the sublime is that of a feeling of magnitude when confronted with vast expanses that overwhelm the mind. In usual reality, our country, such feelings accompany the perceiving of the starry heavens, the open ocean, and other such things.

An incident of the sublime began on that sofa: I (metaphysically) was softly falling through a gigantic tunnel that had a diameter of miles, a tunnel that was filled with golden cloud somewhat reminiscent of candyfloss. Next to the tunnel was a similar but smaller tunnel that was somehow to the upper left of my vision. Certainly I experienced the sublime but it was combined with a feeling of supreme warmth and bliss. I felt as if I were in a channel that transported people between the different celestial cities found in a heaven. Although not a theist by trade, I received more religious imagery than this transportation infrastructure. At another point in time – time which had slowed down, broadened out, gone backwards and returned to me again later in itself – an imposing cliff face, or something similar, had violently cracked open two crevices which formed The Cross. It was an aggressive display of power, as if one of my strong doubts had manifested itself after years of neglected abuse. The vastness of this cross was again sublime but threatening. A Christian would indubitably see this as a sign of his creed’s truth. I did not as I was to see many other creeds’ symbolisms as well. Their mutual exclusivity barred any single interpretation from certitude.

More noteworthy to me was a sturdy ram’s head forcing itself into my total periphery of vision, a ram who did not quite dare face me, as if the beast were somewhat shy despite his power. He had spiralling horns which were not at all of the type of moving psychedelic spirals I otherwise often saw. Soon though the ram becomes more sinister, I see The Baphomet: the occult diagram of the dark lord, the devil, with goats-head, wings, human torso and goats’ legs hooved encircled by the inverted pentacle. I try to communicate with this deity, but to no avail, he was silent. I felt no fear, only wonderment.

Apart from awe-inspiring visions of immense magnitude and complexity, another experience of note was that of encountering a number of feelings or emotions that I had never before experienced. These feelings were overwhelming but as they are not common to mankind no words exist which refer to them. They were neither pleasant nor unpleasant; they were distinct from these feelings but nonetheless overbearing. I cannot even remember them as I have no concept to use for retrieval, but I do remember having them. Perhaps the feelings we commonly have are fit for evolutionary and daily purposes, but it is possible these are not at all exhaustive of what are possible for our minds.

I did not dare open my eyes at the peak of the trip as the travelling and the expanses and strange new worlds I encountered were so fast, colourful, detailed and complex that I thought adding optical visual information would be too profound. Eventually they did open, however. Everything in my living room appeared as if in motion. Two paintings across from me were pumping quite violently in and out of the wall, without unison. The content of the top painting was also speeding in, as if a camera were recording the street on a motorcycle. I laughed at another painting behind me as I thought it mischievous: it was trying to slip down the wall and escape whilst I was diverted; though I did catch it do so once. The pine tree by the window caught my gaze. All of its arms were flailing wildly. This I did consider somewhat disturbing and so avoided looking at it despite its intent to fix my attention. Commonly inanimate objects were at times anthropomorphised in the sense of being issued a will, presumably in a similar vein to world tyros, infants, who instinctively issue the same perspectives. Two interpretations offer themselves here: mushrooms induce a state of infancy, or that infants are not yet instructed in a mechanistic outlook useful to survival.

Not only space was being made a mockery of, but also time. As I waved my hand before me, it left a trail of itself. As I followed a lemniscate trail with my hand, a lemniscate figure remained. The reason for this, it seemed to me, was that the present, the now, had extended its duration. What I saw and what I ‘remembered’ seeing were combined, giving the impression of a trail. The now had expanded to around five seconds – recent memory was perception, or rather perception and memory were not particularly distinct. It was not Schopenhauer’s ‘Eternal Now’, but it was a longer now.

Space, time and causality are for the neo-Kantian philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer necessary creations of the mind, they have no independent existence. At death these representations cease and ‘one’ merges with the indivisible totality of the universe-in-itself, ‘the will’. Kant’s nuance for this actual aspatial, atemporal realm is noumena. An interpretation of a magic mushroom experience through this transcendental idealist dark glass would posit that the ingested active magic molecules, psilocin, overload or inhibit the function of the brain, effectively maiming it albeit temporarily. As a result, space and time cannot be properly projected. That is to say, the spatial and temporal distortions experienced are not added, as it were, to one’s common perception; rather, these distortions are actually the beginning of the removal of the anthropogenic perceptive screen which normally masks reality – noumena – with space, time, causality, qualia, and other such categories. Presumably if one overdosed, these creations would go beyond distortion to destruction which then would be identical to death but with the prospect of returning to the body and the world as spatio-temporal representation.

In limbo then I was, or perhaps purgatory would be more apt considering the devils I had met. Furthermore, I constantly saw streams of skulls. At one point they were all outlined by a thin luminous turquoise light. This shifted the atmosphere from the gothic to the futuristic. In here I saw a very detailed metal insect, or at least a raised metallic pattern of an insect. This was centred within a valley of dark computery texture. The head of another insectoid, some kind of giant ant or praying mantis, at one time tried to communicate with me without much success. Despite its appearance I registered it as an alien with high sentience.

But the most intense alien experience involved no beings but the inside of a spacecraft. Within a dark huge expanse of a room stood a complex but elegant glass cylinder restrained by four vertical pillars. Slowly but sturdily I moved closer to the cylinder at the centre of the craft. As I hit the cylinder so to enter I was struck powerfully by a feeling that almost made me unconscious (though I do not think that would be possible as the experience would just continue). A bright light enveloped the whole scene in presumably a Pauline fashion; but not an insect, alien, or mongrel thereof demanded why I persecuted them and thus no conversion took place.

Much glass or crystal-type matter occurred throughout my travels. At one point swirls of multicoloured planes, swirling somewhat like a whirlpool suddenly swirled down upon another glass cylinder, as if a test-tube had been placed at the centre of this colourful, patterned ocean vortex. I was surprised and awe-struck by its beauty, sublimity and unexpected appearance. Eventually the ‘water’ got into the cylinder without breaking or filling it and still swirled downwards to I know not where.

Soon thereafter, or was it before (or are these words redundant in non-time) I looked down upon a wizard of the Tolkien style on a beach standing behind a large vertical elongated and round crystal which measured up to his chest. It was held up by sharp dark spikes that followed and passed its height. This Istar had raised arms and a fixed gaze upon it, for some unknown reason.

Another glass-type phase involved a garden that harboured a toy train set. These miniature trains were being driven by pixies with little fairies playing around the track outskirts. There were also many colourful mushrooms dotted about and much overall activity. The whole scene was covered in glass, and glass even followed the trains through the little tunnels they steamed through. The glass gave the garden village a translucent, self-enclosed beauty.

These Romantic little elves, pixies, fairies accompanied me even to the phenomenal world – in this case my flat in west London. As I set my eyes upon the ceiling which was mocking me through its moving play of light, I noticed fairy dust everywhere which brought me back to visions of paths of magical colourful mushrooms lining elfin roads. I should note that these fungi were not the type I ate, and I do not think of types that exist in our world.

The status of one’s closed-eye visions lies between that of imagining something and seeing something. It is like the latter in that these visions are adventitious, as Descartes would say; passive as William James would say – one cannot control what one sees, one’s perception is completely at the mercy of ‘what is out there’ as in common life. It also resembles the latter as regards the complexity of phenomena. It resembles the former in that nothing is permanent or regular and ocular information will override it – though in this case that information will not translate well.

At one point my girlfriend gave me a block of Yorkie chocolate. Although English varieties, or definitions, of chocolate are sneered at by Continentals, this, then, was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten, and it remains so to this day as taste is always subjective. As the block melted in my mouth I saw a factory of elves breaking down the giant block and then shovelling the chocolate parts into rivers of pleasure that were streaming downwards somehow into me. This much resembled Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and makes one wonder about the pastimes of certain authors. I also thought to myself that chocolate is ultimately a collection of molecules, matter, whereas pleasure is not. Pleasure here is a mental translation of certain matter from a certain place (the tongue). This pleasure is translated back into matter – seratonin or endomorphin molecules, say, in certain material locations in the brain. ‘Pleasure’ though is neither chocolate molecules (theobromine) nor brain molecules (serotonin, etc). Pleasure is distinct, it is qualia, and though correlated to matter it is not identical thereto. This reflects the twofold understanding of the same reality: Schopenhauer’s world as both will and representation. This was represented to me in the metaphor of chocolate rivers as opposed to pleasure rivers within the chocolate factory.

If that was the most gratifying thing I had ever eaten, a swig of seventeen-year-old Bowmore Islay malt whisky was the most gratifying thing I had ever drunk. As the spirit passed my palate and throat I noticed and took great pleasure in a myriad of distinct, potent tastes followed by an embracing warmth lining my throat. I am not certain as to whether taste sensitivity is increased under this spell, or whether the mind can focus on details and complexities otherwise effaced by everyday concerns.

This food and drink was administered by my girlfriend as my body did not respond well to my commands vis-à-vis movement. As I lay on the sofa, my (mind’s) relation to my body was similar to that between a captain and his vessel. I was being sent information that my feet were touching the arm of the sofa, but this information was not felt, just known in concept format – as a captain may get information regarding the hull’s touching of an iceberg.

My girlfriend huddled up to me at one point. Her body became a small town, somehow connected with Heidelberg, with little townsfolk going about their business having houses lining the streets relative to her arms and legs. Then a giant octopus, a Kraken, placed itself on top of her/the town and let its arms diffuse into the place, its arms then melding into street structures which made them have a sharp, hard and pointy arch as opposed to their general cephalopodic round shape.

Again I laughed at the absurdity of such things. Laughing was common but not without reasons. If an audience had seen such things in a film it would also be prone to laughter. Another absurdity that caused me to laugh was seeing rows upon rows of blue and turquoise wolves moving towards me, indeed a midst of wolves, sometimes jumping up to be seen, like dolphins jumping above sea-level. But then some entities akin to the ‘ghosts’ in the old computer game Pac-Man started popping up in the rows here and there crying ‘boo’ as I saw their large gazing eyes.

After a few earth hours I returned to relative reality exhausted after what seemed years of psychological, astronomical and even teuthological exploration. Magic mycology is practical metaphysics.