Mushroom Paradise

[ChainofPeople]

Unlike my confusing and ultimately unrewarding salvia experience, all my mushroom experiences have been blissful to say the least.
I love the warm, breathy, ripply open eye visuals; I love the feeling of peace; I love the uncontrollable laughter; I find the confusion endlessly amusing; I love the  AMAZING otherworldly closed eye visuals; I like it as a group or by myself; I love the feeling of rebirth and reinvigoration; I love the fact I love life so much after a trip.

I have only done it 5 times, all with dried psylocibin mushrooms capsules.
The first time I basically laughed my ass off at eveything, the second time I had an intensely spiritual experience, the third time I felt amazingly relaxed, the fourth time I created my own world in my head, and the fifth time I pondered over existence itself.

I would recommend psylocibin to anyone and everyone, I can't imagine having a bad trip. The only negative side effects are a noticeable body load and slight nausea, but these diminish as the trip peaks and are gone on the way back.

tl;dr: I LOVE MUSHROOMS!

[Bushpig]

Amen!

[laughingwillow]

You can't imagine a bad trip on shrooms? hahahaahahaha!

Not all fungus is created equally. Trust me on this one.

The dosage required for P cubensis to affect MOST people in a negative manner is quite high. But two to four oz. of wet  cubensis or 7-14 g. of dried is enough severely alter one's perception dramatically.

And there are varieties of shrooms other than that mentioned above which can prove hellish at relatively low dosages. Not sure of the scientific name, but a friend in CA called one of them "blue meanies." I didn't know why. Now I do. Prolly the first time I cried during a psychedelic experience. Prolly the first time a telephone pole ever uttered anything meaningful to me. And this particular version of a personal hell unfolded at a halloween costume party.

By the way, don't try these tricks at home, unless you live in a country with an enlightened gubmit and have a home with sufficiently padded walls....

lw

[ChainofPeople]

To be honest I have no idea which species I had, but it seemed the larger the dose, the better I felt. I realise there would be a limit to this, but mushrooms seem to have a very friendly feel to them that I can't imagine turning bad. At least compared to say, salvia...

[boomer2]

Blue meanies generally refer to Copelandia cyanescens.

Blue fuckers are P. baeocystis.

Gold tops and god caps usually refer to cubes, but some Copelandia mushrooms also are called gold caps in Florida and blue meanies in hawaii and Australia.

See:

http://www.mushroomjohn.org/articles.htm for species id and different species.  60 under discussion at the site with over 3,500 pictures of 60 species

boomer2

[Bushpig]

I hear P.aucklandii havea special reputation ?

BUt you will always have good and bad experiences.  The god onesare fn, amazing, jawdropping.  The bad may seem horrible at the time, but may make you aare of things about yourself or the world that are neceary to know.

"You don't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need" - The stones


Boooshpig

[boomer2]

Two versions of a bad trip on shrooms.  The first from two Seattle newspapers The P.I and the Times.

Same story, different viewpoint.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Tuesday November 23, 1976. Page 1

A Boy's Wild Trip On Magic Mushrooms

By Bruce Sherman

He is a freckled-faced redhead, a 13-year-old student at an Eastside junior high school. He describes himself as a pretty good athlete. School officials say he's a bright boy.

Late last Friday night his parents found out he had eaten "magic mushrooms" during an earlier gathering with a few friends.

They found out as their son was strapped to a table at Evergreen General Hospital. HE was screaming and swearing. The mushrooms had been found when his stomach was pumped.

Yesterday they revealed the story of their son's experience Friday night, in hopes that it would be a warning to parents and other youngsters who might be seeking the mushroom high. The youth joined in the warning.

"I saw the devil -- I'd close my eyes and see nothing but red," he said, back in school yesterday. His friends had picked the mushrooms in a nearby field, and school officials said they were popping up all over the place.

"It was too horrible to describe. I'll never do it again.

His mother said he appeared strange, different than she'd ever seen him, when he strode into their home Friday night at 10:30.

A few minutes later his father found him lying face-down on a bathroom floor, apparently unconscious. As he was helped to a kitchen chair, his parents noticed that he had urinated in his pants. He wasn't aware of it.

"I slapped him and he didn't respond," his mother said yesterday as she described the experience. "I think he was hallucinating quite badly. His eyes were rolling and he was very upset. I slapped him and I pulled his hair."

His parents drove him to Evergreen General. They tried to bring him back to reality by having him sign his name. He couldn't remember it.

After his stomach had been pumped, according to his mother, a mushroom expert was found who said the mushrooms were hallucinogenic, not toxic. Their son would be all right, he told them.

"But my son was strapped down and screaming," the mother said. "He was crazy, and he probably would have killed himself eventually because the hallucinating effects were so violent."  "For a couple of hours they didn't know which way he was going to go. If you want my opinion, nobody in there knew what was going on."

It was 4 a.m. when the youth finally calmed. He was discharged from the hospital on Sunday and returned to school yesterday morning.

The vice principle of his school said yesterday these mushrooms are growing "everywhere around his school and the kids apparently are picking them."

If his students are picking and eating the mushrooms, said the vice principle, it's happening all over the area. King County officials agreed with his speculation.

"These young teen-agers have gotten into a little fad," said Dr. Alf Pederson, an official with the Seattle-King County Health Department. "They're taking a real risk. They could easily get into trouble with toxic mushrooms."

He said seven teen-agers recently were brought into a hospital in South King County with violent physical reactions to mushrooms. And officials at the Poison Center at Children's Orthopedic Hospital said they had received 40 calls since November 10, dealing with mushroom related problems.

No recent mushroom deaths have been reported in this area, but officials warn that only an expert can tell the difference between toxic and non-toxic mushrooms.

And they say that this region's recent mild, moist weather has given way to a mushroom boom of sorts, compounding the problem of possible mushroom deaths and bad trips.

"Nothing I've ever experienced is even close to it," the Eastside youth said of the horror of his experience. He described how his coat melted as it hung beside him in the hospital.

And he told how it seemed that the medical personnel were torturing him with the equipment they were using to help him.

"Maybe other kids will learn from my experiences," he said. "Maybe my telling you about them will help."

SEATTLE TIMES
Tuesday, November 23, 1976


By Dee Norton

"My son was like an animal. He wanted to jump off everything. It took two grown men to hold him down. They finally had to strap him down (in a hospital intensive-care unit). If he had been loose, he probably would have thrown himself in front of a car."

Those are the words of a mother describing what happened after her son, 13, a student at an Eastlake junior high-school, ate about 30 mushrooms picked near the school.

"He was absolutely insane, extremely violent and totally out of control from about 11 p.m., Friday until 4 a.m. Saturday: the mother said. " He was hallucinating. He has very little memory of it now except he remembers grotesque faces."

The freckled-faced boy and three or four others ate the "magic mushrooms" at a party.

"He said he was kind of light-headed in about 15 minutes and soon became dreadfully ill," the mother said.

"Somehow he got home. I don't know how. By about 10 minutes of 11 his eyes were rolling and it was like he was unconscious."

The boy was rushed to a hospital. "They (hospital workers) didn't know what to do because they didn't know what he had taken and he couldn't tell them," the mother said.

"they saiT he went wild. They strapped him down and later pumped his stomach. By about 4 a.m. the doctor told us he was conscious.

We don't want him becoming a hero," the mother emphasized. "He was totally out of control and could have killed himself.

"we want this to be a warning to other parents and their children." "This boy says he will never do that again," a spokesman at the school said. "He said that having his stomach pumped out was a horrible experience and that what the mushrooms did to him was even worst."

Dr. William Robertson, director of the Poison Center at Children's Orthopedic Hospital said there are about 30 varieties of mushrooms that are hallucinogenic in varying degrees.

"We think that in some cases the people who eat them are high from what's in their minds rather than from what they ate," Dr. Robertson said. But some will give you a high. But it takes a professional mushroom expert to identify them.

"There are others that are very toxic. A person could die from eating some of them. Some cause either liver or kidney failure. If someone is going to go out and pick some and eat them, the safest way is to have a professional do the picking and then (let him) eat one before you do."

Then two articles of the same story from the Eugene Registered Guard which also noted that the local hospital had received at least 40 calls in a 15-day period with concerns about bad trips and/or bad effects on shrooms.

EUGENE REGISTERED-GUARD

Thursday November 25, 1976. Page 19B

Seattle (AP) - "Magic mushrooms" are turning on teenagers while parents and school administrators fear that youngsters may die if they get the wrong fungus.

Hallucinogenic mushrooms are growing "everywhere around school, and the kids apparently are picking them up," says the vice-principal of an Eastlake junior high school in Seattle. He said if his students are eating the mushrooms, others in King County are catching on too.

Medical officials agree. "These young teenagers have gotten into a little fad," said Dr. Alf Pederson, an official with the Seattle-King County Health Department. "They're taking a real risk. They could easily get into trouble with toxic mushrooms."

Pederson said seven teenagers recently were brought into a hospital with violent physical reactions to mushrooms. Officials at Children's Orthopedic Hospital Poison Center say they've gotten 40 calls since November 10 for mushroom related problems. No deaths were reported.

The region's moist weather has spawned a mushroom boom of sorts, compounding the problem of bad-trips and possible death.

"It was too horrible to describe. I'll never do it again," says a 13-year-old Eastlake junior high school student who ate some hallucinogenic mushrooms Friday night. "Maybe other kids will learn from my experiences. Maybe my telling about them will help."

He swore, struggled against restraining straps and clawed at hospital attendants as they fought to pump his stomach. He believed they were torturing him with the equipment they were trying to use to help him.

He described how his coat seemed to melt as it hung beside him in the hospital. "I saw the devil--I'd close my eyes and see nothing but red," the youth said.

His trip was a nightmare for his parents, too, who did not know what was wrong. His father found him face down on a bathroom floor, apparently unconscious. As the boy was helped to a kitchen chair; he wet his pants without knowing it. "I slapped him and he didn't respond," his mother said, describing her horror. "His eyes were rolling and he was very upset. I slapped him and I pulled his hair."

"My son was strapped down and screaming," the mother said. "He was crazy and he probably would have killed himself eventually because the hallucinating effects were so violent." It was 4 a.m. Saturday before the boy was calm.

And then two days later on November 27, another story circulated still carrying the same line.

EUGENE REGISTER-GUARD

Saturday November 27, 1976. Page 15B

Psychedelic Hunt on in NW

Mushroom Mania In Full Bloom

SEATTLE (AP)--It's psychedelic mushroom madness once again in the Pacific Northwest.

At least 40 persons have telephoned to inquire about mushrooms in the past two weeks at the Children's Orthopedic Hospital Poison Center. Law enforcement officials say hundreds of people, most of them teenagers or persons in their 20's, are trying to find mushrooms that contain psilocybin and psilocin chemicals akin to LSD

Prosecution of the hallucinogenic mushrooms is a misdemeanor. Beyond that, eating too many can make a person sick, health officials aid, and they look just like other mushrooms that are poisonous.

The most common varieties sought by hunters of illegal mushrooms are those known locally as "Psilocybe" mushrooms and those of the mushroom genus Panaeolus, said Richard C. Powell, an instructor in mushroom identification at a community college in suburban Bellevue.

They are relatively common in the Northwest, Powell said, and perhaps are becoming more common. There are increasing reports of their presence "and maybe it's because we're becoming more aware of them," he said.

Mushroom hunting after the first cold rains of fall is a common event in the Northwest. Most folks go after the non-hallucinogenic type, but the hunter's after a "high" are particularly persistent.

Some prowl dark corners around downtown business buildings and trample over lawns and fields.

"I've had them swear at me, and I've had them come tell me to get back in y house," said a Bellevue woman who asked not to be identified only as Mrs. Lockhart. "They come into the yard and pick them and put them in little plastic baggies. They always put them in baggies."

One boy, a suburban junior high school student, said he ate some hallucinogenic mushrooms and "it was too horrible to describe -- "I'll never do it again."

When brought into the hospital, he swore, struggled against restraining straps and clawed at hospital attendants who fought to pump his stomach. He believed they were torturing him.

The magic mushroom fad has spread to Skagit Valley, about 50 miles north of Seattle, where some farmers reportedly have put up no trespassing signs in fields that were heavily picked in the past.

Further north, Whatcom County Pros. attorney Dave McEachran said many farmers have complained about vandalism by mushroom seekers. He said there is trafficking in the illegal plants.

"People in just the last few years have discovered that hallucinogenic mushrooms are available," Powell said. "A few people have known for a long time, but they have stayed away from them."

"I think what we got is a mushroom cult that thinks that these mushrooms are less of a problem than LSD," Powell said. "But it's like Russian Roulette for some young people."

This story of a bad experience is from the Honolulu Newspaper and the incident occurred on the Big Island of Hawaii.   He sliced himself with a razor blade while on mushrooms.

TRIBUNE-HERALD (HILO, HAWAII)
Sunday March 22, 1981. #68:1, 16


The Other Side of 'Magic Mushrooms"
Last week a 17-year-old Kona high school student did something he has done several times before--he ate a handful of mushrooms, the so-called "magic mushrooms" he and a friend had collected in a South Kona cow pasture.

A few hours later, the youth was rushed to Kona Hospital with multiple, self-inflicted stab wounds after he started hallucinating and became violent. He was admitted to the hospital with both deep and superficial lacerations to his face and stomach.

"I came home and went upstairs. I was having a good trip when for some reason, I don't know, I became confused. Then I did it, but I don't really remember why," the Konawaena High School student said in a telephone interview.

I wasn't visualizing demons or anything. I totally remember everything except being carried down to the ambulance. Why I did it and why I went in to take another shower, I don't know," he said. "I remember I was in the bedroom and just stood up. I remember turning around and grabbing the knife, then I just did it."

The young man, who also holds a part-time job, said he cut his face and stabbed himself in the stomach.

The teen who has since been released from the hospital and is recuperating at home, said he had eaten mushrooms several times previously with no bad effects.

He said a week ago Friday he ate "a small handful...I've eaten more than that before." Although he says he has found three psychedelic types of mushrooms growing in Hawaii, identified from pictures in books about mushrooms and calls them by their scientific names, he called the kind he ate last week "conehead."

"They were big one-inchers," he said, adding they were sticking out of cow paddies in Makua fields. He had eaten that kind twice before with no bad effect.

"They were smaller before, but that is the only difference I can think of. I wouldn't ever, ever eat a mushroom I wasn't sure of," he said.

He said he and his friend ate the mushrooms fresh this time, although they were collecting and bagging them for drying. "It's not as bad to eat them dried, because they taste really bad," the youth explained. He said mushrooms are not always available, but are frequent after a day of "real wet rain and cloudy sunshine." He said he's probably eaten them less than half a dozen times in the year-and-a-half since he started eating them. The youth's mother permitted him to be interview about his experience because she said she was concerned that other people may be unaware of the possible pitfalls of picking mushrooms and eating them. <"He just walked down the stairs, bleeding. I didn't really understand what had happened. I thought it was a joke, that he was using Vampire's blood (make-up)," the youth's mother said.

He came home in the early evening after taking the mushrooms in the presence of a group of friends, according to his mother, and went upstairs to his room after telling her he wasn't hungry and didn't want any dinner.

"After a couple of hours up there, he decided he was freaking out so he tried taking a shower," the mother said, adding the shower didn't help and the young man became violent. "He was flailing out at things. He was pretty strong, in spite of his wounds," she said.

Her sons' friend also had "a very bad reaction" to the mushrooms the pair consumed, the woman added. "He thought he was going to die. He made himself throw up."

When asked if they might have picked the wrong-kind of mushroom, she replied, "They know what to look for."

The woman said she has not really questioned her son about the details of the incident but was concerned that others should be made aware of the possible effects of eating magic mushrooms.

She said she has heard "a lot" of people, high school-aged kids as well as adults talking about eating the psychedelic mushrooms.

She says she has never heard of anyone having a toxic or violent reaction to magic mushrooms and she was also unaware that they are illegal. "I've never heard of anybody worrying about it," she said.

"I never knew they were illegal myself," her 17-year-old son said. "I never heard of any law against it like marijuana."

Checks with big Island health and law enforcement authorities show little experience of knowledge of problems locally caused by people eating psilocybin mushrooms. Possession and distribution of the magic mushrooms are felonies in Hawaii.

Howard Medeiros, director of Awareness House, Hilo's drug treatment program, said he was unaware of any instances of drug abuse through the consumption of mushrooms. He said he suspected mushrooms may be secondary to other drug usage.

Psychiatrist Sam Paltin, head of the Hawaii Community Mental Health Center, said he is aware some segments of the community are using mushrooms "very informally," as opposed to a regular basis. But he said he has not heard of any toxic reactions and the consumption of mushrooms is not a factor in his clients' lives.

"One guy I know is going into the business of raising the mushrooms because you don't have the problems of Green Harvest and it's not that hard to grow them," Paltin said. When told Psilocybin is illegal, he added: "He was probably kidding."

A statewide Department of Health survey released last month indicated more than 75,000 residents would admit they have experimented with such hallucinogens as LSD and magic mushrooms. Keith Cernal, the DOH statistician, said he has no specific evidence to support it, but he believes the consumption of mushrooms would be more prevalent on the Big Island than other hallucinogens such as peyote or mescaline.

Michael Moore, a Department of Health drug specialist, said psilocybin is a naturally produced "pseudo-hallucinogen" that is chemically related to LSD. He said mushrooms are less potent than LSD and the effects generally occur within 30 minutes of consumption and last four to 10 hours.

"Research indicates there is no physical addiction to psilocybin but a tolerance tot he drug's effect does develop, requiring greater amounts over a period of time," Moore said, adding he has never heard that psilocybin accumulates in the body and would believe that to be false.

He said psilocybin is a fungus that occurs in about twenty types of mushrooms, found primarily in Europe and North America, with some strains found in Mexico and South America. He added that only one variety is found in Hawaii, to his knowledge.

The health department drug specialist said the mushrooms are found in cow fields and other natural settings.

"They have sort of a goldish cup on top. When you pick it, press the stem and if it turns to purple on your fingers, that's it," Moore said, explaining that is the rule of thumb street people use to identify the psychedelic mushrooms. The blue or purple staining is the oxidation of the psilocybin, he added.

"If you eat the wrong ones, you can die. There are numerous cases of young people being rushed to the hospital and having part of their abdomen removed.

Moore said there is no way to tell how much of the hallucinogenic agent is in each mushroom. "It's a hit-or-miss thing."

Dr. William G. Cooper, the Kona doctor of osteopathy who treated the Big Island youth who suffered the bad reaction last week, warned against eating the mushrooms.

"For those who say 'Oh, I've done it before and it's safe,' it's not safe, even if in fact you've done it before and done it safely," Cooper said, adding users can't be sure they are ingesting the same amount of psilocybin even if they consumed the same amount of mushrooms.

"The main message is: don't get false security from it and of course, you certainly shouldn't encourage other people to do it. hallucinogens have no predictable effect," Cooper said.

so as one can read, shrooms are not for everyone.  Many people do have frightening experiences due to dosage and set and settings of an experience.

boomer2

[dendro]

the fact that both boys got "sick" would indicate they ate the wrong shrooms.

[laughingwillow]

Naw den. I'm not sure about that last fact you gave concerning the shrooms being the wrong type. I think the kids reactions were the problem. The shrooms were not poisonous as they found after pumping the first kids stomach. And the kid in kona apparently knows what he's looking for ,at least according to his mother.

lw

[dendro]

Yeah, I should have been more clear in my post. Since I live in HI, and the Trib account was last, I just lapsed and responded about the Kona story, cuz I am familiar with the shrooms of the BI.

The Kona boys didn't get their stomachs pumped. So who knows what they ate?

I've never heard of a reaction like this to shrooms. Wow. Does this sort of thing happen a lot? I really haven't researched this type of thing well. But I do note that often, when there is a problem, it arises from mixing shrooms and other drugs like alcohol, as sometimes happens in the Netherlands, for example.

HI shrooms have never made me the least bit sick. Which is why, when I hear of two people eating the same collection, and both getting really sick, I have to wonder if maybe they ate a non-psilocybian by mistake?

[boomer2]

The Kona boys didn't get their stomachs pumped. So who knows what they ate?

There was only one kid from Kona who freaked in that long post form the big Island.

There are six species of magic mushrooms in the Hawaiian Islands.  Five Copelandia species and one Panaeolus, Panaeolus subbalteatus.


Also, pumping ones stomach does not alleviate the effects of the mushroom compounds once they have commenced.   The Gastric Lavage only causes more stress tot he person making more of a bad trip for him.

I have, at parties, seen kids tweak on tea made from shrooms because of the fast come on in liquid form. IT is too much for the CNS.

You can read dozens of cool news items on shroms at my site at:

http://www.mushroomjohn.org/news.htm

There is also a news item of a guy who raped and murdered a 4-year-old girl in Honolulu near Kapiolani park while I was there.

That was disgusting.

boomer2

[dendro]

Hi MJ, the trib article mentioned the boy's bud whom also got sick:

"Her sons' friend also had "a very bad reaction" to the mushrooms the pair consumed, the woman added. "He thought he was going to die. He made himself throw up."

Just seems odd to me that both ate the same collection and got sick, is all.