Well last night was the day that we tried the High Hawaiians.
This is apparently the strongest visual effect mushrooms/ truffles you can get in Leiden. (Netherlands)
My housemate, Janek, is leaving on Sunday to go back to Poland, so it was the last time to have this experience with him.
We were meant to do them with all the housemates, but as it turns out 1 is more adverse to this kind of stuff, and 1 has some bad reactions to psychedelic substances. …or whatever he said. So in the end, it was just me, Janek, and the English house mate.
So anyway, how did it go?
1st, the taste was absolutely horrid. Like by far the worst I’ve ever tasted. The original ones I had, I said that they tasted like a mix between almonds and walnuts…and the taste wasn’t actually that bad.
These….they tasted like they still had some of that, but…it was different levels of terribleness after that.
Here’s a few pictures of Janek trying them.
My other housemate was dipping them in humus because she said only in that way were they bearable.
She had a point.
As for how much we took… the original plan was to do 1 box each, to really feel the visual effects.
Note. A ‘beginners’ dosage is half a box (11grams), but if you’ve done them a few times, your body builds up some sort of immunity to them.
So when I asked for advice from the guy at the shop, he said…’yep 1 full box should be good’
However, on the account of the terrible taste, we couldn’t finish 1 box each and probably had ¾ s each instead.
When did it kick in?
For Janek, apparently it started kicking in pretty quickly, like JUST as he finished eating them in fact.
For my other housemate it took her about 30 mins afterwards.
And for me, it took a good hour or maybe even 1.5 hours before I began to feel anything.
I think it was because I ate a lot of curry that I cooked myself for lunch… and my body was maybe still digesting that.
Visual effects?
Well… this is a bit strange…and not what you’d expect.
You’d expect me to say that I saw colours everywhere and that I could see the colour of sounds, or I saw green elephants roaming around or something.
Nope. None of that.
I had my eyes open, waiting for something like that… but it didn’t really happen. As best as I can describe it it’s like dreaming whilst you’re awake, but you’re not seeing through your eyes, but still in your mind.
So you may be staring at the ceiling, and your eyes are showing you what’s right in front of you, however your mind is overclocking and showing you dream like states which are all pretty interesting.
What helps?
–Darkness. Darkness helps a lot.
We had a mistifier contraption thing which you could set it to glow different colours, and kept it on the deep red setting.
That was really nice to be honest.
The effect is a delicate thing, so any outside interruption, will probably break you out of your little journey.
So tell your other housemates, that you’re having a moment and leave yourself in a dark room.
Music – you can’t have anything with lyrics, or at least lyrics that you understand. It should be rhythmic bass and fairly repetitive. It’s almost like a bit of a meditation. In meditation, you’ve got chanting.. there’s no outside disturbances….you’re wanting to find something a bit like that.
We had this song on constant repeat.
Just let it play in the background as you read the rest of this..
It’s like a kind of African setting / vibe, and I could very clearly imagine fire, sand, warmth, being at 1 with nature, and then stars and the cosmos at the end.
I think I would also recommend soft ear plugs. Because it would block most of the high frequency sounds that causes the majority of the interruptions and breaks you out of your thoughts, but it allows the long wavelengths sounds to still be heard. …such as the rhythmic music.
–Blankets. Its strange your body goes through hot and cold spells, but I think it’s better to be warm rather than cold. It allows you to truly relax.
–Fasting. Because the magic mushrooms are digestible, as in they have to be digested to take effect they take 30-40 mins. If you’ve eaten many things, then of course its diluted and will take ages to digest as well.
So make sure you’re well rested, are not thirsty but don’t have too much food in your stomach, and I’m sure you’ll have a good experience.
Any profound realisations?
-Different levels of consciousness/ existential planes.
This sounds like I’m jumping down the rabbit hole here, but to those that have experienced this kind of journey, I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about.
I think the way to describe it is that there’s a realisation that there’s many different levels of consciousness.
Life, human beings existing normally are on 1 existential plane. Let’s just call that life. (yeah I’m well aware that to anyone that hasn’t tried any of this stuff that I’m starting to sound like a hippy douchebag)
So life, human beings, all the toiling around we do working had , getting more money, buying a house… all of this stuff is just 1 existential plane.
Then there are various others. I wouldn’t say they’re deeper or above it, or below it… there are just others.
When you’re in the moment, everything makes sense, you know that you can reach the 2nd or 3rd planes, and you know there are even more but you can’t quite reach them. Just having to exist in 1 is so limiting to you, when at that point in time you’re able to exist in 3 at the same time.
You start to wonder that if you can reach 2 or 3, and most people are just stuck in 1, then how would be the being that can reach 11 or something.
Would we call this person god? Do you have to be a creator to be experiencing more than 1 plane at once?
No wonder some churches use psychotropic substances to allow members to feel closer to god.
It certainly put normal life into perspective…. The futility of it all. That sounds terrible I know, but I imagine that some people embrace their lot in life because they’re quite happy existing elsewhere instead of just on 1 plane.
-Motorbiking. I really need to get back onto the Ordos international circuit in China.
I was having realistic dreams about going around that track.
Track racing requires so much concentration that you can’t possibly focus on anything else.
You’re completely in the moment.
It felt like if you slide off the track, then you’re back to the real world, back to reality.
But whilst you’re on the track you’re trying to find the perfect line, the perfect chance to make everything flow and carry you around the track in the smoothest and fastest way possible
Here’s the actual notes that I wrote down just afterwards:
Sand, fire, people around the fire, never completely warm, loved ones- me not expressing enough, different planes, consiousness.
Life is but one. Human life is no different, need to feel more alive, need more muscles, need to FEEL the life flowing through me,
at peace with all around you trees, predators, prey, accepting of the life cycle.
Knowing that there IS more
Desire to go racing again, finding perfection. Just me the bikes and the curves. Off the track is back to normal consciousness and normal life
How did the others find it?
Well…. Yes, that’s a bit of another story. For me, it was great. For my two housemates…apparently they wanted it to end.
For the girl she said it was like she was trapped in her own mind and couldn’t get out and couldn’t speak even.
I saw her at one point in the kitchen for what I thought she was just drinking water… but it turns out she was trying to ‘make cereal’.
She apparently had the bowl of cereal, she had the milk in hand…but couldn’t bring herself to pour the milk into the bowl of cereal so that she could eat it.
Its like when you see a cooking recipe and there’s a step that says ‘now mix the 2 together’ and you’re thinking… who is that for? Of course you mix the 2 together.
Well apparently that step was for her.
Also she kept giggling insistently because, well mainly because of Janek’s experience and what he told us.
So as you might be able to imagine, Janek had a very difference experience. I think he is a bit more susceptible to the mushrooms than myself, noticed by the fact that it hit him much earlier than myself or even the other housemate.
We were all laying on a mattress close to the floor, and occasionally he would lift himself up a bit and then ask a question …well kind of, by only saying ‘ummmm?’ and then think better of it , and lay back down.
Then apparently he disappeared for a bit, and I guess went upstairs. I then later saw him downstairs laying face-down on the tiled floor, for which I can only imagine he was trying to cool down. He then started pacing around the living room and asking questions like ‘but why are we here?’
‘Why am I in the Netherlands?’
To which I was thinking… I don’t know the life choices that you made that brought you to be living here right now. I think that’s a question for yourself.
And then he asked us if it was true that he was screaming before?
To which the other housemate and I looked at each other and was like…. Umm no…
And he’s like… oh I must have gone upstairs to do that.. to my room.
For which we told him, ‘you know there’s a new housemate that came this evening and she’s in your old room right?… that’s why all that luggage that WAS downstairs is no longer here… because they came to get it’
‘Did you just go into your old room and scream?’
hahah and then we’re just imagining this poor new girl in there, as this polish guy bursts into the room…starts pacing, and then starts screaming… and she’s just left sitting there not wanting to draw attention to herself thinking….. ‘this …might have been a mistake moving into this house’
So we had a good laugh about that, but we may have to apologise to the new housemate.
Oh yeah, so he kept asking if I was here… to which I said, ‘yes, but I’m still also not here’ but I think that was the wrong answer … because he was trying to return to reality.
For me it was quite easy to return to reality, in fact that’s what my body was actively trying to get back to. ….but not his body. Apparently he couldn’t come back, even though he wanted to.
One of the things the guy at the shop tells you, is that if you want it to end, you can eat something that is high in sugar and it quickens the process so that you come back to reality quicker.
I heard for a while what I thought was Janek eating cereal but actually it turned out that he was just eating raw sugar out of the sugar container. Hhahaa brilliant.
And then he said something about.. ‘ but did we bring the bins in?’ ‘I think the rest of the neighbourhood knows that we’re foreigners, and we’re not integrating…because we don’t even know that we have to bring out bins in at the right time….’
To which I said, ‘Janek… no one cares, they know we’re foreigners and that we may not do things ‘normally’ but that being said… it doesn’t matter either way, and if they do care…fuck’em’
That kind of attitude seemed to relax him a bit.
So all in all, was it worth it?
Just quickly, here’s some facts about our little journey:
-These particular ones tasted absolutely terrible. Like seriously horrid.
(you have to chew them lots to make sure they digest quickly…so its not fun)
–2 out of 3 of us didn’t have a good ‘magical journey’ as you’ve just read.
–I did, but it didn’t kick in until 1.5 hours later.
-because it’s not an immediate effect, you can’t control it so easily. If you decide you’ve had too much… too bad, you can’t change that fact.
–You DO reach new levels of thinking, and get to discover new things about yourself
–It’s not what you think…there’s no pink elephants or anything… you might be thinking of LSD (from what I’ve been told) so your expectations may be broken.
–It’s relaxing
-If you’re not comfortable with just being left with your own mind… this is probably not going to be for you.
-The cost of 1 box is between 18 euros and 24.5 euros. These High Hawaiians were the 24.5 euro ones.
-The whole experience lasts 4-5 hours. So you have to set aside time to do this.
-You are incredibly well rested afterwards, don’t feel sick at all and are able to work the next day. (I did). It’s as if you did all your dreaming whilst you were awake and afterwards your body says … ‘ok take a rest where you will sleep absolutely perfectly with no dreams’. Pretty decent.
-You feel really productive the next day. You feel like you’ve got goals you know you need to focus on.
-If you’ve got a resistance to mind altering substances…then the effects will not be as strong.
-You should NOT mix with alcohol. There is a warning label…but it needs to be stated WAY more clearly. This is not a mixing substance.
So, for me was it worth it? Yes, definitely. I would recommend it, provided you know what you’re getting into.
Having an idea of what to expect means that nothing is going to be too surprising and you’re also probably not going to be disappointed.
So people, go out and enjoy!
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