I've had a long relationship with shrooms and I too have had mixed feelings. But my final conclusion is always that they're my friends Usually it's only your true friends that tell you the truth about yourself.
Shrooms have shown me things no one else could have. I'm grateful. Even thou sometimes it has been complete torture. But that torture comes from within me, not from the shrooms.

I've had 4-5 very difficult trips in my life and last weekend I had the last one.
Since a trainwreck pharma trip a year and a half ago I've been very cautious with psychedelics and haven't been tripping much. And mostly low doses of DMT and changa. After that trip on pharma I was going to be super cautious not to ever use too much of any of those substances so I would never have to go through that hell again.

I decided to go last weekend to a summer house with two friends to do some shrooms. My first proper trip in a year and a half.
We made tea out of 20gr. of P. cubensis and split that evenly between us 3. I've done much bigger doses before so I wasn't expecting to have to fight but damn was I wrong. And the weird thing is that it's like I sucked the trip out of both my friends that hardly felt any effects. Well they did trip quite hard but didn't realize until afterwards how messed up they had been. But man did I have to fight. I just went back to the pharma trip I had that year and a half before. It was clear that there was something I had to finish there 'cause on that trip I didn't get through anything. It was some massive energy blockage that I had to get through.

And on that trip last weekend I did have some success. I managed to let go when things were getting too difficult. For a few seconds several times. I felt ecstasy through the pain and terror. I got some relief.
I had been quite depressed the last two months but last week I had a lot of energy and managed to finish some work that had been impossible before.
While on the trip I just didn't get why I had done it. Why I had planned this trip to that summer house to have these mushrooms that gave me this terror. I was so confused I had no idea what I was doing or why. And once again I promised myself I would never do this again. But I also realized I had done that before but always broke that promise. So I got terrified I was doomed to do this again and again for no reason.

But later when I got back I remembered my intensions and knew I would probably do this again some day.
This trip did me good. I've felt better these day's since than I've felt in months. Very positive and life's been good

I think it's normal to have mixed feelings for psilocybin. It's a tricky substance.

I think one of the toughest parts of psilocybin is that it can be one of the most honest mirrors. With that, I think if you trip with shrooms and didn't gain something, you've probably missed a point or two.

Those tricky bastards sure love to push a person out of their comfort zone, though!

For me it is more like as if it would point at the vulnarability and fear i try to disguise on a day to day basis.."Look, that's how fearfull you really are!"

I mean, fear is something, we can't really invest ourselves into, and even more - can't really accept. We have to function in this culture. But ignoring the fear within us, does not solve the problem.

I never take high doses, so i can't really comment on "the true nature" of the mushroom. I like it's ability to teach through allegory though....

My experience with mushrooms is that they consistently take me to exactly the place I need to go/look at/deal with. Regardless of where I might *like* to go. And this isn't always easy to deal with.

In the past, various defenses would come up as my system resisted allowing change—physical discomfort, ego/mind stuff, etc. I seem to be learning to move through this. The technique is to breathe, go inside, and feel one's feelings... and if/when ego/mind comes up, go back to breathing, going inside, and feeling my feelings.

Mushrooms are confusing and scary. I'm catious about them and won't endorse them to strangers like i used to.

With that said, i feel great ever since my difficult experience. Not sure what gives. But i feel like i am a better person by far.

After my bad trip I saw mushrooms as a toxin, a deliriant, something that makes you temporarily psychotic. My biggest fear was eating a mushroom. But after time I lost my fears. I recalled everything I learned from them, and how they taught me what life really is. I don't remember how I felt on the bad trip, because I basically got amnesia for 7 hours. But I know I was terrified for 5 of the hours. People told me. The scariest part is the next time I took the mushroom I was right back to the bad trip, I was going psycho, I can only know what a bad trip is if its happening, and by then it's too late. That is what scared me the most.

I am not sure how to get only the positive effects and not the paranoia and delusional thinking that terrifies me. But I will only eat doses 1g or less now. When I feel more comfortable ill start to increase them. Because I know I can't give up on these, they are golden teachers (literally) and they brought spirituality into my life.

I ask you to not give up on them. Because they will fester in your mind and gain more and more negative thoughts. If you keep an open mind anything can happen. Maybe only do .5g with a best friend in the woods. Taking them in nature really helps me.

Yes this is my experience too. Absolutely. The only way to get out of the total mindfuck and pain. Not easy and takes time to learn, but it's a very valuable thing to learn that you can apply to your life. Let go, go with the flow. Stop thinking and just feel. Go out of your head into your emotions. Let them dissolve. When that happens you can realize pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. You can reach beyond duality kind of.

Last weekend swim sat down and ate a mushroom sandwich for lunch hoping for a cozy afternoon kicking it with his girl in the grass watching clouds and whatnot. He's an experienced tripper of almost twenty years. What happened that day he can't explain to himself. A more or less normal fungi experience turned into a full on dmt hyperspace wormhole so bad, he found himself face down in the dirt tearing at the grass making primordial noises while pissing and shitting himself. Yes, all of that and more, very humbling to say the least. It wouldn't even let him get up for some air like it does on even heavy pharma sessions. Meanwhile he's glad to be back amongst the living, so I heard..
Did this ever happened to anyone else? How can psilocin get you into hyperspace?

^minus pissing and shitting myself, yes.

Why would you expect that psilocybin cant get you into hyerpspace? After nearly 20 years did you never experience this? Mushrooms have always been like that for me even before I ever ingested DMT.

The first time I experienced DMT I remember thinking that it was just like mushrooms except I could smoke it and have the whole trip in 10 minutes. Psilocybin mushrooms and DMT are very very very similar experiences for me. The only real difference is that mushrooms can be a bit more twisted, making for an experience that can be mentally harder to deal with at times..that might be due to other substances present in the mushrooms more than the effects of pure psilocybin/psilocin. Some species are far clearer than cubes also.

It would be interesting to compare mushrooms vs pure psilocybin.

Agreed, they are similar of course. But real hyperspace moments were only experienced with some combination psilocin and L or maoi etc before. THIS he did not expect. Swim was a great fool not to test that batch before ingesting a handful. He should know better. He is not sure if he can make your suggested comparison right now. But yeah, it would be good to identify the things that make nightmares. It's no fun to go down that road..
Which species do you find more clear Jamie, the woodlovers?

psilocybe cyanescens.

I find mushrooms - other than dmt, to be perhaps the most positive and clear in meaning of the psychedelics I have experienced. I don't find I need to work so hard interpreting the experience during or after- it just always seems to make sense. they always relay a strong message of self nurture and love towards me and for this I am grateful and hold them in the highest regards with dmt. Mushrooms don't like me smoking weed at all, as is the same with dmt... i guess this is partly to do with the weed causing a too analytical headspace for an already clear message...with LSD I feel i can smoke weed quite comfortably, though I choose not to now. I also find the visions on mushrooms much more interesting than those of LSD these days, which after a lot of trips are pretty much the same every time. Each mushroom trip has a new lesson whereas I feel with acid I'm treading old ground (I do hold a special place in my heart for acid too though)

oetzi13 the wood growing mushrooms are my favourite of the species I have tried. We get subeuriginosa and another species I am unsure of (which is by far my favourite I wish i knew the name) growing in a lot of the colder wetter areas in australia and I go them over cubies or copelandias anyday

all in all I find mushrooms to be a very positive entity and are thankful for them having found me.. my heart lies with acacia though

txs you guys. I'll find some woodlovers next time fer sure. I have always known dmt and fungi are 'very' symbiotic, (aka pulling a 'Mc kenna', but I did not know you can get there just with fungi alone. I guess I was trying to find out if there is some chemical reason. Do they work on the same receptors? I know the molecules are very much alike and I almost remember reading about that somewhere already. If I could only remember

much respect.

Igualmente amigo

During my only pharmhuasca trip, which was pretty mild for the most part, out of nowhere I felt an intense "pull" as a very physical-looking alien-like entity appeared in a white light on my ceiling above my bed. I was stricken with fear and time slowed to a crawl. Then it felt like this entity was inside of me or something. I think the feeling you mentioned is what I experienced. It was very scary and powerful. It felt to me at the time like a personal alien invasion or something. I got super confused and felt weird feelings all over my body and mind. I remember during this time thinking about mushrooms and it was something significant, but I can't put my finger on what it was now. After this weird "invasion" I felt like I was dieing for like an hour. I really thought "this is it." My mind was racing and I felt crazy. Eventually I calmed down. The next day I figured that the "invasion" experience induced a panic attack, which I had never had before, so while tripping it was really scary and I thought I was dieing.

I guess I just shared this because the fact you have experienced this entity hijacking as well, and in my experience I had profound thoughts of mushrooms in my head, but I can't remember what about them... So yeah I figured this was sorta related.

Ever seen John Carpenter's "The Thing?"

I think the mushrooms are The Thing, they travel the galaxy, influencing organisms and becoming a mental symbiosis with an organism, which it uses to further its agenda.

Mushrooms are the alien, and we are the alien.

Psilocybin comes from lightyears away

I agree

When i wasn't being eaten by tiny little worms i was having hallucinations of grand scale battles in outer space

Great discussion.

For me the mushroom has always been a great teacher. What I noticed is that the trips tend to get different depending on where I am in life at that given time. It's like the mushroom drags out of me the things that I need to see at that point (good and bad).

Yes, this can be scary, but in my opinion facing your fears is what it is all about. It's the path of the warrior that we all chose to take when embarking on this journey with psychedelics and the fear has to be overcome.

Therefore I believe the mushroom gives you what you "deserve" and probably that is also exactly what you need at that point in life. They know how you feel and it is impossible to hide it from them, so best be prepared to ride with them on the crazy but fascinating awe-inducing rollercoaster.

I have always had a very deep respect for and to some degree, an intense fear of psilocybin mushrooms. Much as I do for vaporized spice, for that matter. The price for admission... is DEATH. Dying is the scariest state of being for humans to experience, perhaps just a few notches more so, than living in this material paradigm? Honestly, why do you think newborn babies cry upon taking their first breath? The isolation is so extreme sometimes it nearly paralyzes me. What is this place? Why do I exist at all? What am I here to learn... or perhaps, to unlearn?

But let's all be very clear on this issue, of all the illusions we embark upon through our existential journey, beginnings and endings are the most terrifying. Why so? Because of the unknown factors involved in committing ourselves to the reality of one or the other state and frequency of mind. When we do so, we gain and loose in equal measure.

My last few voyages with shrooms have been quite overwhelming and that's an understatement!!! Many of the profoundest lessons I've been shown, involve mirroring to me (the witness to this earthly dream sequence) my ordinary habitual mindset and it's predilection for creating mirages and false assumptions about everything I am exposed to. I have been forced to cross the line/membrane, whereby I am torn asunder and gradually experience re-assemblage, through most definitive ways and means. It's as if the habitual propensity for accepting the surface crust of my self, for the central core... is the major lesson imparted. Resisting such a lesson is quite unpleasant!

I have often felt that the reason mushrooms are so intense is because we are largely composed of bundles of energy thought-forms. Our accumulated ideas are in essence, our ego-selves. Shrooms seem to enjoy pulling the rug out from underneath us. They leave us stripped naked of our human conditioning and reveal to us the majesty and immensity of the Cosmos. As Teacher Plants, they show us where we are stuck, both psychologically and metaphysically. They can be mistaken for being heartless at times, or even as cruel... but they are not. They are simply being 100% honest with us. They show us our mindset, without any blinders. They also facilitate our understanding, by forcefully tearing us to shreds! And they show their depth of compassion, tenderness and universal love, by allowing us to be reborn, anew. They gift us a second chance to fully be here now (free from the self-created constraints of the time-space-continuum).

I have bee waiting for the right circumstances to ingest another quarter ounce with Caapi as an accompaniment. The Caapi tea seems to bring the voyage much more into Hyperspacial parameters. And yeah, I do find that when I am willing to release my fear and my fixation upon this or that concept, I am gifted with a pure vision of the reality within this dreamscape. Mushrooms are my favorite psychedelic for a number of reasons. Mostly, because they are the fruit of this world, blooming upon the earth, already to partake of their teaching. Not necessarily the "forbidden fruit"... but they are tough on the ego-self. I have discovered that DMT is the same way. One simply cannot hold on to one's own routine self-patterning and hope to survive the experience (without much suffering and confusion). And when one finally lets go completely... the bliss is immeasurable.

Having the dualistic mindset dissolved so powerfully, always shares the shit our of me. And this is wholly understandable, as the EGO deals with so much misinformation and is so very prone to distort reality for it's own agenda. Mushrooms do not like our bullshit, my friends. They destroy these errors in universal understanding, sometimes most unceremoniously so. Seemingly harsh at times... but always truthful and always with our greatest benefit in mind (if mind is the correct word for this). But more than anything else, the lessons are loud and clear. I hear the same revelation each time I embrace this entheogenic Deity.
And I do paraphrase, but of course.

"Wake up, you are really a frequency of consciousness. Open yourself to this truth. You are not the material husk, you are the Divine kernel within it's epicenter. You are Universal awareness, Omniversal Being, Infinite consciousness dancing freely throughout the myriad forms and appearances it assumes for an infinitesimally brief sojourn. Let go... or be destroyed time and time again. Be yourself, your true self. You are already here. Now is an eternity and it is heavenly in it's reality. Do not be something unreal, illusory and spiritually limiting. Be wholly One with God, consciously and wholeheartedly. Embrace the remembrance of yourself becoming manifest thought, within this Infinite Grid.

Be God awakening to the splendor and perfection of itself, as it effulgently blooms, in yet another guise. Receive love without reservation, so that you might share it with all you encounter. Immerse your mind within the effulgence of the Divine Field of Unified Being. Be that loving, all-knowing light, for certain death awaits those who sleep endlessly. Reflect this healing wisdom and allow your own Spirit-song to be the Spirit-song of all unified life forms. There is but the one singularity, experiencing existence from behind the veils and mirages composing dreams within dreams... that of the Supreme Godhead! For this morphing dichotomy is surely the biggest untruth and a vibratory frequency of no lasting reality, as if it were but a passing thought, a transitory dreamscape."