I recall one afternoon my friend and I picked and took some mushrooms (they grow in abundance at a certain time of year where I live), when I was perhaps 15 years old. We didn't take a huge quantity, but enough for a mild, pleasant experience.
That same evening I realised that I had to write an essay for school - it wasn't like me, but I'd completely forgotten about it, and now had a single evening to write a whole essay... bah, how could I possibly do that?!
I sat down, and... it just flowed. Words, sentences, paragraphs, ideas, characters, just sprang to life on the page - and it was good, really good! My mind felt amazing - like my consciousness had been expanded. I'd never felt such pure imagination and joy of knowledge before.
By the end of the evening I had unquestionably the best essay I'd ever written, and about twice the target length.
A week or so later when I got the results, it was a B, and I was kind of shocked - it was a masterpiece, dammit, and normally I pretty much got straight A's in English regardless! The teacher called me back after class - he told me what I submitted was way better than A+ work, more what would be expected at university level, or by a published author. He also asked who wrote it, because "it obviously wasn't you" - he didn't believe my insistence that I'd written it. He couldn't prove anything, so gave it a B and strongly warned me not to "pull a stunt like this ever again".
Of course, people can have great ideas and do great work without hallucinogenic drugs - that should really go without saying. But the results with such drugs can be utterly incredible - also keep in mind the effect is not only while using the drug, but afterwards too. The first time I k-holed on ketamine (many years later), it felt like I somehow understood the universe itself, and my mind felt incredible for 2-3 weeks afterwards.
A cautionary tale though. Later as a 15/16 year old again, we took an insane amount of mushrooms one night after something terrible had happened. Hundreds of them. I kept finding myself in the corner of the same room, staring at a troll (an hallucination). It seemed like it had happened a hundred times, and was pretty frightening. It was like being trapped in a never-ending nightmare. I later spent several hours shivering uncontrollably on a bed. It was a long time ago, but I guess the whole thing lasted at least 12 hours. I've never touched mushrooms or any other hallucinogen since, and I doubt I ever will, even if as an adult I wouldn't be as irresponsible as I was as a kid.
Another aspect which is absolutely need to good is the company that you take the drugs in. Once, I took LSD with a couple of "friends" of mine, which turned out to be a sort of devil-worshiping ritual to indoctrinate me into their cult. Apparently all of them had went through this process where they played a niche genre of music called "darkpsy" which is absolutely horrendous to your ears.
From my experience of the event, I can say with complete confidence that when they were drugged and this ritual was done to them, they had no will-power to break away because the potency of the drug is quite high and the power of suggestibility is through the roof. You become the group on LSD. I think to perform such a evil thing another person, you absolutely need to have lost your soul and I'm pretty sure they were hard-core devil believers at that point.
The moment I started getting the "bad vibes" I just got the out of that house and had to trip alone by myself in a strange area for the next 12 hours. I had one of the worst experiences of my life for that 12 hours where I was rampantly paranoid about what went down and couldn't trust anyone for a week. Currently seeking therapy for this now.
Sorry that happened to you. Many years ago, I went through something loosely similar (actually it happened like 3 times in different ways). The gist is that I started to suspect there was 'another level' going on with a group of people, some kind of hidden ritual relating to some kind of secret power, and that it was at least partly nefarious/evil.
I've thought about this a lot since, and I think much of it was being a situation where boundaries and intentions were unclear, and having that crash headlong into the belief systems I'd been raised with. My mind was reaching for explanations for my sensory overload & the firehose of novel data coming in-- so the war between 'demons' and 'angels' I had been repeatedly taught was real as a kid was what it latched on to.
I have learned since then that this is one of many common adverse reactions to tripping in a bad situation. I strongly, strongly encourage therapy! Uncertainty in this area can lead to misguided forays into cults, conspiracy theories or even a psychotic break.
By the way, I had never heard of darkpsy, so I decided to check it out. It's definitely interesting to me sober (I like weird stuff), but I would absolutely not want to listen to this back in the days when I was tripping. What was done to you was cruel, whether it was really meant that way or not.
Totally agree. The time it all went wrong for me, the whole thing was a bad idea from the start. Something terrible had just happened in my friend's family, and we weren't going into it responsibly, and/or to have a fun experience - we just wanted to get fucked up, and took waaaay too much. Right before things went bad, we had an argument, and I ended up alone for a long time.
For anyone that's going to use mushrooms, LSD or any other hallucigen, I'd strongly recommend having a trip-sitter. This is someone who stays with you, remaining sober throughout proceedings), and can help guide the trip, and get you back on track if they start going wrong. Oh, and of course I'd recommend considering your tolerance level, and only taking a sensible amount.
I should have mentioned, there was some alcohol and a lot of cannabis too. But we took many times more mushrooms that were required for "tuning in" - an amount for several hours of madness at best.
Haha, that's an awesome story. To write something so off the scale. Like, you were an A-student! And you wrote something that was so unbelievably good, your teacher didn't believe it. That is pure gold.
So I have to ask. Do you still have that essay? And can I (email in profile), or we (HN), read it? I get it if you don't want to. Just asking if you're open to it :)
> He couldn't prove anything, so gave it a B and strongly warned me not to "pull a stunt like this ever again".
You should have gotten your A+… This seems really arbitrary and unfair. The teacher could not prove anything, but gave you a worse grade based on what? His personal opinion of your abilities? Dick move.
At the time I thought so too, but I wasn't about to tell him it really was me, that my consciousness was expanded and I now had a deeper understanding of human language and the universe :P
Have you thought about trying to find that teacher today and explaining him what actually happened back then with the mushrooms and the essay? Would make for an incredible story
I hadn't thought about that! I can only recall the teacher's nickname (which wasn't exactly complimentary), and I'm not in contact with anyone from those days, so I guess it's a non-starter. Plus, during my school years we were all taught that if you did any drugs at all, you'd end up a disgraced heroin user that would end up on the streets and die, and all the teachers seemed to fully buy-in to this notion.
Lots of people in public positions have to buy in to those theories ala 1984, especially teachers.
You should definitely try and get in contact with that teacher! Go to the school and ask around, try to cross reference the years you studied with the teachers around, they must keep records surely
I recall one afternoon my friend and I picked and took some mushrooms (they grow in abundance at a certain time of year where I live), when I was perhaps 15 years old. We didn't take a huge quantity, but enough for a mild, pleasant experience.
That same evening I realised that I had to write an essay for school - it wasn't like me, but I'd completely forgotten about it, and now had a single evening to write a whole essay... bah, how could I possibly do that?!
I sat down, and... it just flowed. Words, sentences, paragraphs, ideas, characters, just sprang to life on the page - and it was good, really good! My mind felt amazing - like my consciousness had been expanded. I'd never felt such pure imagination and joy of knowledge before.
By the end of the evening I had unquestionably the best essay I'd ever written, and about twice the target length.
A week or so later when I got the results, it was a B, and I was kind of shocked - it was a masterpiece, dammit, and normally I pretty much got straight A's in English regardless! The teacher called me back after class - he told me what I submitted was way better than A+ work, more what would be expected at university level, or by a published author. He also asked who wrote it, because "it obviously wasn't you" - he didn't believe my insistence that I'd written it. He couldn't prove anything, so gave it a B and strongly warned me not to "pull a stunt like this ever again".
Of course, people can have great ideas and do great work without hallucinogenic drugs - that should really go without saying. But the results with such drugs can be utterly incredible - also keep in mind the effect is not only while using the drug, but afterwards too. The first time I k-holed on ketamine (many years later), it felt like I somehow understood the universe itself, and my mind felt incredible for 2-3 weeks afterwards.
A cautionary tale though. Later as a 15/16 year old again, we took an insane amount of mushrooms one night after something terrible had happened. Hundreds of them. I kept finding myself in the corner of the same room, staring at a troll (an hallucination). It seemed like it had happened a hundred times, and was pretty frightening. It was like being trapped in a never-ending nightmare. I later spent several hours shivering uncontrollably on a bed. It was a long time ago, but I guess the whole thing lasted at least 12 hours. I've never touched mushrooms or any other hallucinogen since, and I doubt I ever will, even if as an adult I wouldn't be as irresponsible as I was as a kid.