Describe the effect magic mushrooms have had on you.

But you knew this anyway Adam so why the fuck am I telling you?

- increased anxiety (especially about how I am regarded by people at work and family),and feelings of guilt

- an appreciation of nature when outdoors

- general restlessness and an inability to get comfortable

- (when restlessness channeled well) desire energy to walk for miles

Two disappointments: no cosmic insights and no particular change in music perception

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction they are going!
There's no knowing where they're rowing,
Or which way they river's flowing!

http://www.cineplexx.at/pics/Gene_Wilder_P42.jpg

Not a speck of light is showing,
So the danger must be growing,
For the rowers keep on rowing,
And they're certainly not showing

http://www.cineplexx.at/pics/Gene_Wilder_P42.jpg

Any signs that they are slowing...

months later i took like seven grams of dried cubensis and the nightsky opened up and showed a massive show of lights that i remember nothing about other than it being a masive show of lights. i cried with joy. when i wanted to go home i found that i had no idea wher my home was because i was someone else all of a sudden. then i got into a one minute groundhog day time slip only the groundhog was soem sort of stone gargoyle which i had to kiss to get out. took me hours to find that out because the sun was rising when tiem started workign properly again.

last year i took a very small dose in summer while bieng in love and the air was literaly sweet and the trees showed amusing everchanging rorschach patterns. it was like being drunk except i was well focused. i forgaev everyone and everything i saw or could think of. also the sky was orange but i suspect it realy was orange because it was evening when i took the shrooms.

(x-post)

second time - they weren't as strong this time, but I ended up playing the strings on a friends acoustic guitar one by one, watching them vibrate up close for an hour or so.

third time - walked around, got pizza, watched t.v. when i started coming down I made the mistake of smoking a joint before going to sleep. when I closed my eyes I saw spinning spiderweb patterns. went to the bathroom to splash water on my face and was transfixed by my reflection which was shifting into different people who I've never met but looked related to me.

fourth time - felt claustrophobic in my friends apartment when I started to peak so I went for a walk. ended up sitting on a bench in a little park staring at a mound of dirt w/ flowers coming out of it. made me totally paranoid and gave me thoughts of death and being buried. when I walked back I ended up standing at a crosswalk for about 15 min. because I was too incapacitated to cross. an hour later I was sitting on a sofa and my legs were twitching wildly, like I had lost muscle control or something.

funny, funny, funny. As in hanging with the friends in a darkened room with ski goggles on and holding sparklers up to your eyes while everyone cackles madly.

Also frightening, as in when will this ride end and will I be safely able to disembark.

Yeah, good shit.

The shrooms will make ya'll crazy.

best moment ever watching an aeroplane at night fly overhead and lots of 'oohs' and 'aahs' as it magically transformed into a space-rocket with lovely electrical flavoured colours and began to land.

Really thought I was going to get to meet an alien.

And ditto water: I sat in the bath for what seemed like hours, just watching little bubbles at the bottom of the bath, which seemed like a whole city.

Now my older, wiser drug-free self looks back and thinks: 'Huh. So you sat in a bath for two hours staring at nothing. And this is supposed to be a life-changing experience?' But it was fun at the time...

"Dude, is this one of the My Bloody Valentine EPs?"
"Dude, this is Achtung Baby."

A friend of mine and I took them in Providence and ended up fantasizing about new wave Nazi assasins when we heard some bad new wave song playing who were going to murder us to the song at 80's night

Disagree with this entirely. Take them in any lively city with good company on the same vibe and it's like walking through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas! Bright lights, everyone looking crazy, it's edgy but a serious rush. Just be sure not to get run down...

I thought that he was not so subtly speaking in some sort of code here.

One time during the deepest depths of a shroom-out I heard my own inner monologue in my (at the time) best friend's voice. When I spoke out loud my voice felt alien.

Run down areas such as can be found around Kentish Town/Kings Cross look particulary disgustingon shrooms.

I reckon a significant percentage of young people in the main London parks this summer are on mushrooms this summer.

I was going to see the Jesus and Mary Chain at Manchester Free Trade Hall, my friend gave me a handful of mushrooms before we left home. About 2 hours later having sat through a rubbish support band I was still complaining "nothing's happening" and thought that was probably that.

About three songs into the Mary Chain set, my world turned upside down. I had a grin on my face until the very early hours of the morning when I decided I probably wouldn't do this again as it was too easy almost like bottled happiness.

Oh and don't EVER ask somebody what time it is.

This ties in with not doing them in a big city or a big party where everyone's pissed. You just get angsty about how you're acting. At a festival I got so paranoid that people were noticing me staring at them I had to hide under a bridge.

Reporter: No, no.

Phoenix: “Something’s crawling out of my scalp.”

Reporter: No, you look great.

Phoenix: “No, but I feel it. I’m not worried about the looks. I’m worried about the sensation of my brain being eaten. … What did you ask me?”

My wife lost the ability to speak the last time we did them together. She sounded like deaf people sound when they talk. She was a bit freaked about it but it wore off after an hour.

second time: it was all cool until you fucking hippies decided it would be a good idea to go juggle firesticks in the preschool parking lot. I refuse to go along and instead will sit on the couch and be paranoid.

third time: I wanna puke, I wanna puke, I wanna puke, I'm going to go try to sleep and have nautical-themed hallucinations and be paranoid while everyone else who ate the SAME SHROOMS goes off and has a lovely time. Bastards.

Robinson

Haha yeah it was probably a nightmare for her, we were in the middle of Oxford St on a Saturday night when it started happening, and the whole way back on the bus she couldn't talk. I got paranoid other people on the bus were talking about us but I had a great time apart from that.

I always need to piss a lot.

I remember looking into a bag of cheap, brightly coloured gummy sweets as dawn broke and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen - the purity of the colours and the way they glowed from within (they tasted nice too.)

Hearing that reggae version of Billie Jean by Shinehead at midnight in a club was one of the most sublime things that I've ever heard. Then my friend decided that he had to go up on stage and take the microphone off the MC bcz "people don't know know what's happening in Rwanda." Luckily he went off to get some heroin instead. Luckily he came back after an hour with only a couple of Red Stripes.

You laugh lots and lots and lots. That's great. Really, really great. Once I laughed so much that I couldn't breathe and the only way for me to get out of the loop was to puke all over my friend's parent's immaculate living room carpet. He accused me of doing it for attention.

I'm baffled by the person who said music was unchanged. You must not have taken enough. For me it seems to deconstruct music - I hear the sounds but they don't seem to fit together, songs go on for ages or else end immediately. Also you can get really freaked out by some songs. "Sunarise" by Rolf Harris for example. Scary.

Well to update... in my experience mushrooms can change your perception of music, but it isn't guaranteed to happen everytime. Just as not everyone is going to have cosmic revelations which some people think are the essence of the mushroom trip.

It's a very subjective effect. (And, btw, I think it's highly unlikely I'd be freaked out by a Rolf Harris song).

Another time I ate a space cake and THEN ate an eighth of old, dried mushrooms. we were all on a deserted beach, and it started raining really hard, and I kept screaming "THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER!!" and slogging back to the bus station. i looked back and saw a couple people just laying on the beach, and another guy walking slowly into the ocean. everyone somehow ended up coming back alive.. i also didn't recognize my girlfriend and could only identify her as the girl from los angeles. it made her cry, but she was on mushrooms, too, so she forgot about it pretty quick... also, i thought it was just an old wive's tale: but i really recommend NOT looking in the mirror.

onetime I felt pretty sick and I ended up vomitting. the vomit made me think I was dying, and I was really confused, and I tried to solve it all via syllogisms, but none of them worked.

I kept talking to my friends and saying things like

OKAY LETS FIGURE THIS OUT
SO I ATE MUSHROOMS AND THEY MAKE PEOPLE TRIP AND GO CRAZY
AND RIGHT NOW I AM GOING CRAZY
DOES THIS MEAN I AM DYING?

and

OKAY SO LETS FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON HERE
NO GUYS, SERIOUSLY
GUYS, SERIOUSLY, GUYS
OKAY SO WE ATE SHROOMS, CORRECT? AND THAT WAS TWO HOURS AGO?
AND TRIPS USUALLY GO ON FOR LIKE SIX HOURS
SO DOES THIS MEAN I AM DYING?

it was really terrifying and I kept trying to solve it by doing things like taking naps (didn't work) and smoking cigarettes (also didn't work) and drinking war (definitely didn't work). in the end I can't remember what happened, but I eventually stopped tripping and here I am on ILE today.

I really need to sort out some mushies. I was going to do them next weekend with a mate but I forgot my wife's back from LA that day so that would be a bit insensitive, so I suppose I'll try and reorganise it for the weekend after.

And the evening come-down session, sat in an old pub with the coziest plush red couches. Ale in hand and the pub cat sleeping on my lap.

Clammy palms
Butterfly stomach
Giggling
Visuals
The horn
Sleep